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UNGLE TRAILS 



AND 



UNGLE PEOPLE 




CASPAR WHITNEY 



UDRARY 

uNivttsirr of 

L CAUfOlNfA 



JUNGLE TRAILS 



AND 



JUNGLE PEOPLE 




THE LOTUS EATERS. 



JUNGLE TRAILS 



AND 



JUNGLE PEOPLE 



TEAVEL, ADVENTURE AND 
OBSERVATION IN THE FAR EAST 



BY 



CASPAR WHITNEY 



AUTHOR OP "ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS," "HAWAIIAN AMERICA," 
"A SPORTING PILGRIMAGE," ETC. 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1905 



LOAN SIACK 



Copyright, 1905 
By CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published September, 1905 



Press of 

Tie New Era printing Commix 
Lancaster. Pa, 



OS 54 * 

mi 



TO 

J. HENRY HARPER 

FOR THE SAKE OP AULD LANG SYNE 



447 



A CONFESSION 

SOMETIMES CALLED " FORE WARD " OR " PREFACE " 

I wonder if it is quite fair to ask an author's 
" underlying motive" for writing a book. The 
Publisher declares that it is— and he is a sage in 
his day and generation. He says the public wants 
to know ; but I say that the public does not care a 
" whoop "—if you remember what that precisely 
signifies. Between ourselves, it is a tradition of 
bookmaking which exacts toll of you and me with- 
out giving either of us any return of happiness. 
Besides, suppose the public does want to know, and 
suppose the desire to be prompted by curiosity 
rather than by interest, as is more than likely— 
should the author yield to the demand? To be 
sure he may owe much to the indulgent reader, who 
too frequently gets little enough of a run for his 
money,— but is not the author paying rather too 
dearly by thus taking the further risk of incurring 
criticism of his motives in addition to the criticism 
which may salute his book? It seems to me that 
to face one risk is enough for one author— cer- 
tainly enough for this one author. 

Then, too, perhaps the author wants to keep the 
intimate whisperings of his day dreams to himself ; 

vii 



viii A CONFESSION 

perhaps he hesitates to voice the call which, un- 
heard by his fellows of the work-a-day world, 
sounds ever and again to him without warning, 
insistent and impelling amid the comforts and 
pleasures and duties of conventional life. 

Know then, you to whom the message of this 
book is meaningless, that the " underlying motive' ' 
which prompted the journeys recorded in the fol- 
lowing pages, was— flight of a spirit that would be 
free from the crying newsboys and the pressure of 
conventions; in a word,— the lust of adventure. 
Those who open this volume to view thje contents 
as of a game bag, would better close it and thus 
save time— and money. There is here the hunting 
and the killing of big and formidable game, but 
'twas not for that alone or even chiefly I trav- 
elled far from the habitations of man. The 
mere destruction of game, always has been of 
least interest to me in my wilderness wanderings, 
and I hope I have never given any other impres- 
sion. It is not the killing but the hunting which 
stirs the blood of a sportsman— the contest between 
his skill, persistence, endurance, and the keen 
senses and protective environment of his quarry. 
I acknowledge to the joy which comes in triumph 
over the brute at the end of fair and hard chase— 
not in the pressing of the trigger, which I never 
do, except to get needed meat or an unusual trophy. 



A CONFESSION ix 

The wilderness in its changeful tempers, the 
pathless jungle, the fascination of finding your 
way, of earning your food, of lying down to sleep 
beyond the guarding night stick of the policeman, 
—these are the things I sought in the larger world 
of which our conventionalized smaller one is but 
the gate way. To pass through this gate way, to 
travel at will, by my own exertions, and un- 
chaperoned,— and to tell you in my halting style 
something of the human and brute life which I saw 
in the big world— that is why I went into the won- 
drous Par East, into India, Sumatra, Malay and 
Siam. 

So there you have the "Foreword"— also the 
confession. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 



PAGE 

THE KING'S MAHOUT 1 



CHAPTER II 

THROUGH THE KLAWNGS OF SIAM 37 

CHAPTER III 

PHRA RAM MAKES A PILGRIMAGE 59 

CHAPTER IV 

HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 87 

CHAPTER V 

HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS Ill 

CHAPTER VI 

THE TROTTING RHINO OF KELANTAN 130 

CHAPTER VTI 

IN THE SWAMPS 164 

CHAPTER VIII 

IN THE EYE OF DAY: THE LOST SELADANG OF NOA 

ANAK 186 

xi 



Xll CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IX 

JIN ABU FINDS AN ELEPHANT 209 

CHAPTER X 

UDA PRANG— JUNGLE HUNTER 241 

CHAPTER XI 

THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 276 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



THE LOTUS EATERS Frontispiece 

THE FINAL STAGE OF THE KING'S ELEPHANT HUNT 
IN SIAM 
A popular holiday; spectators flock to the scene by the thou- Facinff 
sands and where the herd crosses the river the stream is **** 
covered with boats 12 

DRIVING THE HERD TOWARD THE KRAAL 

The shifting, darting crowd of spectators hang constantly 

on the heels of the elephants 24 

NOOSING AND DRIVING THE HERD AROUND THE KRAAL 

SO AS TO SINGLE OUT THE ROPED ELEPHANTS 32 

ALONG THE KLAWNG (CANAL) 

Fully half of the native house usually develops into verandah 42 

A GAMBLING PLACE OFF THE SAMPENG IN BANGKOK 

In the background a band is hard at work entertaining the 
patrons 42 

A BUSY KLAWNG IN BANGKOK 

Passenger-boats. House- and freight-boats 48 

A NATIVE HOUSE ON THE KLAWNG TO RATBURI 

Picturesquely but uncomfortably (mosquitoes) situated in a 
grove of cocoa betel-nut trees 56 

THE HOUSE-BOAT WHICH SERVED ME WELL 56 

PHRA RAM AND HIS BODY SERVANTS 78 

SOME OF MY HUNTERS 

Who assumed the clothing of civilization in an effort to 
protect their bodies against the briars 84 

CAMPING ON THE EDGE OF THE JUNGLE, SIAM 84 

THE FAR EASTERN DEER 94 

xiii 



XIV ILLUSTRATIONS 

FORDING A JUNGLE RIVER IN SIAM 98 

MY THREE SIAMESE HUNTERS DRESSED TO MEET THE 
THORNS OF THE JUNGLE 
Thee. Nuam. Wan 108 

THE LARGER AND MORE COMMON TYPE OF SAKAI 

His sole weapon consists of the blow-gun and quiver of 
poisoned darts, which he shoots with great accuracy 116 

THE SMALLER AND LESS COMMON TYPE OF SAKAI 

A father and his two sons. They carry the poisonous darts 
in their hair and very closely resemble the Negritos of the 
Philippines 118 

THE SAKAI GROUND-HOUSE 122 

SAKAIS CUTTING DOWN A TREE 

The man cutting is about 30 feet from the ground and the 
tree is 200 feet high and 6 feet in diameter. They build the 
scaffolding and fell the tree in one day, using only the small 
crude axe such as that seen in the topmost man's hand 126 

MALAYAN DANCERS 

Some dances are full of graceful though monotonous move- 
ment; at times the performers paint their faces fantastically 142 

THE MALAYAN WOMAN OF THE COUNTRY 

Who wears the same skirt-like garment, called sarong, as the 
men, only she folds it above her breasts 150 

THE MALAY BAND 

The violin seen here ordinarily has no place in the native 
orchestra 158 

CHEETA, MY FAITHFUL TAMIL, A SERVITOR OF ONE 

CASTE BUT MANY FIELDS OF USEFULNESS.. 168 

A MALAY VILLAGE 

The houses in a Malayan village are always upon the water, 
if possible, and invariably raised on piles above the ground 
from six to eight feet 176 

THE WILD BOAR AND HIS PUGNACIOUS COUSINS 182 

THE LARGE AND FORMIDABLE ORIENTAL WILD CATTLE 

FAMILY 196 



ILLUSTRATIONS XV 

THE PARTY WHICH NOA ANAK LED ASTRAY FOR 
SELADANG 
Lum Yet, the wise. Noa Anak. Scott 206 

PACKING THROUGH THE SUMATRAN JUNGLE 218 

ELEPHANTINE PLAYFULNESS— BAMBOO CLUMP BROKEN 

DOWN AND SCATTERED 230 

UDA PRANG 

Who served successfully both his God and Mammon 242 

TIED UP IN THE JUNGLE STREAM FOR NOON MEAL 256 

ALONG THE KAMPAR, TYPICAL OF SUMATRA RIVERS.... 256 

A "REAL LADY" OF THE SIAMESE JUNGLE NEAR THE 
BURMA LINE 
Dressed for the express purpose of having her photograph 
taken by the author 268 

AT THE HEAD WATERS 

Disembarking from our dugout and setting out for the 
interior 268 

A GROUP OF INDIAN BEATERS 

With the panther successfully driven out and bagged 280 

STARTING OUT FOR A TIGER DRIVE IN INDIA 

The howdah elephants and sportsmen leading; the pad or 
driving elephants following 292 

LUXURIOUS HUNTING IN INDIA 

The camp of a large party, with porters in the foreground . . 302 



JUNGLE TRAILS AND 
JUNGLE PEOPLE 

CHAPTER I 
THE KING'S MAHOUT 

HE was not impressive as to face or figure, 
yet Choo Poh Lek was a notable character. 
Of his class he was one of the few energetic, 
and the only ambitious native little man with 
whom I became acquainted in the Far East. And, 
quite as wonderful, he did not gamble. Unques- 
tionably he came honestly by his active qualities, 
for Choo was a Simo-Chinese ; his father, Lee 
Boon Jew, being one of the many thrifty Chinese 
that, thirty-five years before, had found their way, 
from the crowded Canton district of China, with 
its desperate daily struggle for mere existence, to 
Bangkok, whose half million people prefer mostly 
to leave the business of life to Chinamen. Lee 
began his commercial career humbly as a peddler 
of fruit and vegetables ; and he prospered. In the 
very beginning he had carried his daily stock in two 



2 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

heaping bushel baskets hung from a bamboo pole 
which he swung from shoulder to shoulder, as, 
staggering under the really heavy burden, he 
called aloud his wares through the Sampeng and 
other narrow land streets of the poorer quarter. 
In one year he had done well enough to enable him 
to buy a small dug-out, which he paddled through 
the klawngs* and on the Meinam River, making 
new acquaintances and new customers, while a 
plook-peef compatriot in his employ supplied the 
already established trade from the baskets. In 
three years he had four boats; and in two more, 
or five years from the day of his landing, Lee 
Boon Jew had a shop in Sampeng, one on the 
Meinam,— which, in addition to a general stock, 
did a little trading in bamboo and rattan— a small 
fleet of boats— and a Siamese wife. In due course 
a son came to gladden the Chinese heart that 
always rejoices in boy children, and by the time 
the fond father was permitted to pridefully ex- 
hibit the gaudily dressed infant in the nearby 
floating shops, the little son came to be known as 

* Canals. 

fPlook-pee is the poll tax exacted of Chinamen, who emigrate 
to Siam and do not enter Government service. It costs four 
ticals and a quarter with a tax seal fastened about the wrist, or 
six ticals and a half (about $3.90) for a certificate instead of the 
wrist badge. Lee had paid the extra ticals in preference to wear- 
ing the visible alien sign. 



• THE KING'S MAHOUT 3 

Choo Poll Lek, after a celebration which quite 
dimmed the customary New Year festival. 

Meantime not only did the business develop, but 
Lee Boon Jew, who was now one of Bangkok's 
merchants, attained to such prominence among his 
compatriots that by the time Choo was fifteen, Lee 
had become Collector in the Bird Nest Depart- 
ment of the Government Revenue Service; a post 
for which he was eminently fitted by both name 
and nature. 

The cares of office did not, however, necessitate 
abandonment of the trade, grown now to an extent 
that kept several large boats of his fleet solely and 
constantly engaged in rattan and bamboo, for 
which they made long trips up river. It was Lee's 
dearest wish that his son should succeed to the 
commercial enterprise which so confidently prom- 
ised to make wealthy men of them both; espe- 
cially since his most intimate associate, Ho Kee 
Peck, had been recently appointed Farmer, under 
the Government, of the Onion, Bees Wax and 
Rattan Department. 

Truth to tell, Lee had dreamed rosy-hued celes- 
tial dreams of Choo Poh Lek's opportunities, and 
the possible prosperity that might easily come to 
a business having two silent partners in the local 
revenue service. Between the good offices of the 
Bird Nest and of the Onion, Bees Wax and Rattan 



4 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

departments, how much profitable trade might not, 
indeed, and readily, be diverted to the boats of Lee 
Boon Jew & Son ! 

But Choo proved a sore disappointment to his 
ambitious father. He had, it is true, given all of 
his boyhood and much of his young manhood to 
Lee's boats, and in fact, was accounted among the 
shrewdest traders and most skilled boatmen on 
the river. There were even those who thought the 
son more astute than his non-talkative but deep 
thinking Cantonese parent. At all events, Choo 
attained to such efficiency that his father sent him 
frequently up the river on the more important 
mission of trading for rattan and bamboo. And 
it was on one of these trips inland that Choo 
crossed the trail of the elephant catchers, and fell 
under the influence which was to govern, not to 
say guide, his life's star thereafter and forever 
more. 

From that day, it seemed to Choo that boats 
were the most uninteresting things in all the 
world, and trading the least ambitious of all pro- 
fessions. He felt the spell of the elephant catch- 
ers, the silent mystery of the jungle, the excite- 
ment of the chase; and then and there he deter- 
mined that an elephant catcher he would be. Choo 
was naturally of an adventuresome temperament, 
which is decidedly unusual in one of his race ; but 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 5 

Choo was an unusual type, as already I have inti- 
mated. The humdrum life of the fruit and vege- 
table boats, of haggling over trades in rattan, and 
of, between times, pulling a heavy oar, had become 
as iron in his soul long before he found the real 
trail in the jungle. Deep in his heart was the 
realization that life for him lacked the spark 
which makes it worth while ; yet until that eventful 
day far in the forest, he knew as little of what he 
really wanted as did his father. On the day he 
found the elephant encampment, however, Choo 
found his spark and his vocation. 

Now filial duty rules strong in the Asiatic son, 
and Choo had no thought of deserting his father ; 
but by Oriental cunning he brought it about that 
the rattan business, necessitating up-country trips, 
became his chief concern in the firm of Lee Boon 
Jew & Son, while the vegetable and fruit end of 
the firm's interest fell to subordinates. Thus it 
was that Choo took up the double life of elephant 
catching and the more prosaic, if profitable, occu- 
pation of rattan trading. It must be recorded 
that he neglected neither and prospered in each; 
to such a degree, in fact, did the rattan and 
bamboo interests develop that Lee, the father, 
found his position in Bangkok advanced from 
small trader to one whose shipments were solicited 
by the local steamship company. 



6 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

Meantime the son rose from one of the half 
hundred beaters employed in elephant catching to 
mahout, for which he seemed to have marked apti- 
tude. Indeed his quick and sympathetic under- 
standing of elephants, and ready comprehension 
of their management convinced the head man, who 
had served the king for twenty years, that in Choo 
he had found a mahout of exceptional promise. 

It came to pass one day that Chow Chorn Dum- 
arong— who was a cousin of one of the children 
of one of the forty-seven wives of the king, and 
something or other in the War Department- 
chanced to be at the encampment of elephant 
catchers and a witness of Choo's really clever 
handling of a tame tusker just ending a period of 
"must,"* during which it had been somewhat 
difficult of control. Choo's work astride the neck 
of the unruly bull, which he had finally subdued, 
had been so courageous and so intelligent, that it 
impressed the king's cousin and he forthwith com- 
manded Choo to be regularly engaged in Govern- 
ment service. So it came about that Choo did 
more elephant than rattan hunting, increasing his 
prowess and reputation in one as his activity in 
the other decreased, much to the mental anguish 

* " Must " is the temporary madness which now and then, though 
not invariably, overtakes the male elephant when kept apart from 
his mates. 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 7 

of his father, Lee Boon Jew, who, although waxing 
opulent between his own post in the Bird Nest De- 
partment and the sympathetic co-operation of his 
wise and understanding friend Ho Pee Peck, the 
Onion Farmer, was aggrieved to the depths of his 
frugal Chinese soul by the unexplained falling off 
in the rattan and bamboo branch of his up-river 
business. 

But one day, after two years more of mental 
perturbation y and gradually diminishing rattan 
profits, the father's heart leaped for joy under the 
word brought him at Bangkok, that Choo had been 
summoned into the presence of Krom Mun 
Monrtee Deeng— another one of the king's mul- 
titude of cousins, as well as a high man in the 
Interior Department— and regularly enrolled 
among the royal mahouts who drive in the period- 
ical elephant catch or parade on festive occasions, 
or personally conduct the jaunts of the king's chil- 
dren when one of his majesty's several dozen goes 
forth on an official airing. And so ended the 
double life of Choo Poh Lek ; for henceforth there 
was no further pretence of attending to the rattan 
business. Choo's soul was freed from trade bond- 
age. Incidentally I must however add, because I 
became much interested in Lee, quite a character 
in his way, that the honor reflected upon the father 
through this appointment of his son, and the em- 



8 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

ployment of a capable man to look after the up- 
country rattan interests, combined to place the 
name of Lee Boon Jew & Son among the foremost 
traders of the city. 

I knew Lee weeks before I met Choo; and the 
first time I saw the latter was in the royal stables 
within the king's enclosure where I was giving 
rather disrespectful scrutiny to the sacred white 
elephants, which, notwithstanding surroundings 
and attendants, impressed me only because of 
seeming insignificance in their washed out hide 
and pale blue eyes. I immediately lost interest in 
the elephants on discovering Choo. Even had his 
obviously at home air failed to attract my wander- 
ing gaze, his dress would have arrested my eye, 
for it was the most resplendent thing in the way 
of native costume I had seen outside the palace. 
Not that it was so rich or remarkable in itself, 
but because the average Siamese is poor and dirty 
and inconspicuously, not to say sombrely, clad; 
whereas Choo was clean and brilliant and well fed. 
He wore a red and blue check panung,* a yellow 

* The panung is a strip of cloth or silk three yards long and a 
yard broad. It is put on by a turn about the waist, the end being 
then carried between the legs and up through the waist and down 
through the legs again before fastened finally to the waist, to thus 
make a pair of loose, baggy knee breeches that, however, open up 
the back of the leg as the wearer walks. Fashioned in this way, 
the panung is worn by both men and women. 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 9 

silk jacket fastened to the chin, with buttons made 
from silver half ticals, a round piece of Siamese 
money worth about thirty cents ; and was bare of 
head, and legs from knee down to stockingless feet. 

He was an important looking personage ; nothing 
like him in fact had I met in the royal enclosure, 
where I had gone seeking the unusual. But my 
attempt to engage him in conversation was a fail- 
ure, for he spoke no English. 

The second time I saw the king's mahout was a 
few days later, in Lee's shop on the river, where I 
was making purchases for my hunting outfit which 
I was then getting together. Lee knew English 
fairly well and I often chatted with him, though 
he had never spoken to me of his distinguished 
son, so that, when I saw Choo walk into the shop 
and make himself very much at home, I naturally 
asked about him; then Lee opened his heart, for 
he was very proud of the boy, and told me the 
whole story as I have told you. 

Choo at once became a very interesting person- 
ality to me ; because of the unusual type of Asiatic 
he represented, and on my own account because, 
having seen something of elephant catching in 
India, I wanted also to see the work of rounding 
up the elephants in the jungle preparatory to their 
being driven into the kraal at Ayuthia, the old 
Siamese capital, for what is called the " royal 



10 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

hunt," but what is nothing more or less than a 
means of adding to the work-a-day elephants kept 
in the king's stables. 

Lee comfortingly assured me he thought it could 
be arranged for me to make a trip with Choo to 
the elephant encampment ; and sure enough it came 
about in due course that as his Majesty, Phrabat 
Somdet Phra Paramendr Maha Chulalongkorn 
Klou, otherwise and more briefly known as Chula- 
longkorn I, had commanded a royal hunt, Choo 
and I in season set out on our way up the river in 
a canoe, carrying no provisions, for we were to 
stop the nights en route with friends of the firm 
of Lee Boon Jew & Son. 

Choo's journey to the jungle resembled the tri- 
umphant march of a popular toreador. 'Twas 
fortunate we had given ourselves ample time, for 
we tarried often and long; not that I objected, 
because I am always on the lookout for human 
documents, and this trip was full of them, many 
not altogether agreeable, but interesting, for these 
were the real people of Siam. Now, the real 
people of Siam are not always pleasant to live 
with ; too many of them are poor, and dirty, not- 
withstanding the river flowing past the door— 
though, speaking of dirty things, it would be diffi- 
cult to find water farther from its pure state than 
these rivers which serve to sewer and to irrigate 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 11 

Siam. Also the houses as often as not are in 
wretched condition, for it seems to be traditional 
with the Siamese not to repair them, but when 
they have tumbled about their ears, to vacate and 
build another: not a particularly expensive plan, 
since the house consists of loosely put together 
bamboo raised on stilts six to eight feet ; and bam- 
boo grows at everyone's back door in Siam. 

Siamese food principally consists of dried, fre- 
quently rotted fish, and rice, done into curries 
which comprise a little of about every kind of 
condiment, and especially a very popular sauce 
called namphrik, a chutney-like and thoroughly 
mixed thing made of red pepper, shrimp, garlic, 
onions, citron, ginger, and tamarind seeds. The 
only reason for the fish being putrid is because the 
natives like it so, for fish are plentiful in the 
rivers and fishermen numerous, though their ways 
of catching are rather amusing and antique. One 
favorite method, borrowed from the Chinese, is 
beating the waters with long bamboo sticks to 
frighten the fish into an eight or ten foot squarish 
net which is lowered into the river from a frame- 
work on the bank by a system of wheels and ropes 
and pulleys ; and hoisted up again when the catch 
is complete. I must confess that when the fish in 
the curry chanced to be dried instead of decayed, 
I found the concoction toothsome. In fact a really 



12 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

good curry is in a class apart ; but one must go to 
India or the Far East to get it at its best. Some- 
times the natives eat pork and oftentimes chicken, 
but for the most part, rice and the fish curry con- 
stitute their chief diet, supplemented by the fruit 
of the country, of which there are many kinds— 
mangosteen, mango, pineapple, banana, orange, 
bread fruit, and that most healthful of all Siamese 
fruits, the papaya, which grows back from the 
water and is a greenish oval melon that suggests 
cantaloupe w T hen opened. 

We did not get really outside of the Bangkok 
city limits the first day of our up-river journey, 
as we spent the night at the home of one of Choo's 
admiring friends, in the centre of a little floating 
community, where a " poey " was given in his 
honor. Now a poey may take several different 
directions of hilarity, but is always an excuse for 
eating and gambling. The poey in honor of Choo 
included about everything on the entertainment 
catalogue. First was a feast which overflowed 
from the house of Choo's friend into adjoining 
ones, attended by two dozen men and women who 
sat in groups on the floors eating a loud smelling 
fish sauce with gusto— and with their fingers; 
neither wine nor spirits were in evidence— the Sia- 
mese as a rule drinking water. Then came ad- 
journment to the river bank, where on a raised 




PC 3 



o .S 



O & 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 13 

platform, roofed, but open on its four sides, three 
girls danced and posed after the gracefully delib- 
erate Siamese fashion, accompanied by the melo- 
dious, always quick time, though dirge-like, music 
of a small native orchestra. The dancing was of 
the usual Oriental character, not, as popularly sup- 
posed among Occidentals, of the " couchee cou- 
chee " Midway variety, but a posturing in which 
hands and arms and shoulders played the promi- 
nent part. In a word it was a kind of slow walk- 
around to exhibit and emphasize the movements of 
arms and hands, the supreme test of the dancer 
being suppleness of wrist and shoulder; some of 
the most expert could bend back their hands so 
that the long finger nails almost touched the fore- 
arm. The band itself consisted of a group of 
metal cups, ranging in size from five to fourteen 
inches in diameter, a series of hollow bamboo 
sticks, also arranged to scale, two drums and a kind 
of flute ; and the musicians sat on the floor. 

Nearby, and attracting at least an equal number 
of spectators, was another platform level with the 
ground, where gambling proceeded industriously. 

Siamese silver money seems to have been fash- 
ioned to meet the native passion for gambling. It 
ranges in value (gold) from six cents up to sixty 
cents, and in size from a small marble with its 
four sides flattened (which describes the tical), 



14 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

down to that of a French pea. There is also much 
flat money made of copper, glass and china, run- 
ning into fractions of a cent. The favorite game 
is a species of roulette, for which purpose the 
money is admirably suited to the rake of the 
croupier. Comparatively recently the Government 
has been issuing flat ten cent silver pieces, and the 
extent of gambling is suggested by the great num- 
ber of these coming to one in the ordinary course 
of the day's business, that have been cupped to 
facilitate their handling on the gaming board. 

After four days on the Meinam we turned off 
on a smaller river somewhere below Ayuthia, and 
took a northeasterly direction through heavy 
foliage, and more monkeys than I had ever seen. 
The first night we stopped at a house dilapidated 
rather more than ordinarily, where inside a lone 
old woman sat weaving a varied colored cloth, 
while outside on the veranda-like addition— which 
is practically half of every up-country Siamese 
abode— were a girl and a boy making water buckets 
and ornaments of bamboo. 

I often wondered what these Far Eastern people 
would do without bamboo. It is a pivot of their 
industrial life. Growing in groves ranging from 
twenty to forty feet in height, though I have seen 
some higher, it varies in diameter from two to 
fifteen or even more inches. The tender shoots of 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 15 

the young bamboo are good eating, while the tree 
in its different sizes and conditions of growth pro- 
vides a valuable article of export, the timber for 
house making, the fibre for mats and baskets and 
personal ornaments, while, in hollowed sections, 
it is made into buckets and water pipes. 

Another day's travel on the smaller river 
brought us to the encampment of the elephant 
catchers. Here were about one hundred men, 
bared to the waist, and a score of tuskers; the 
former divided among a small colony of elevated 
bamboo houses, and the latter scattered at graze 
in the surrounding jungle, wearing rattan hobbles 
around their feet, and bells of hollow bamboo at 
their necks. This was the home camp, where 
preparations had been making in leisurely and 
truly Oriental fashion for the start toward the 
interior ; but on the evening of our arrival a mod- 
erate state of excitement resulted from a native 
bringing in the report, which he had got third 
liand, of a large white elephant seen in the jungle. 

The day was in Siam when the lucky man who 
discovered a white elephant was raised to the rank 
of nobility, and in case of its capture, very likely 
was given one of the king's gross of daughters in 
marriage. In the old days the catching of such 
an elephant was a signal for general holiday- 
making and feasting; nobles were sent to the jun- 



16 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

gle to guard it, and ropes of silk were considered 
the only suitable tether for an animal accustomed 
to the deference of a populous country. 

When My Lord the Elephant had rested at 
the end of his silken tether sufficiently to become 
reconciled to his encompassed condition, he was 
taken in much glory to Bangkok, where, after 
being paraded and saluted, he was lodged in a 
specially prepared palace. Here he was sung to 
and danced before, given exalted titles, shaded by 
golden umbrellas and decorated with trappings of 
great value. In fact the white elephant was once 
made a great deal of, but never really worshipped, 
as some writers have declared. Because of its 
rarity it is still very highly prized by the king and 
though capture is unusual enough to create excite- 
ment, yet popular rejoicing and honors for the 
catcher do not nowadays attend the event. But 
the white elephants continue to stand unemployed 
in the royal stables at Bangkok— where western 
ideas are becoming evident in electric lighting and 
trolley cars. There were four in the royal stables 
at the time of my visit, leading lives of luxurious 
ease. The real local consequence of the white ele- 
phant rests in it being to Siam what the eagle is 
to America, the lion is to England— a national 
emblem. On a scarlet background it forms the 
Siamese imperial flag, and gives name to one of 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 17 

the highest orders of merit in the gift of the 
king. 

So while the little colony of catchers in the 
jungle lost no sleep and missed no fish curry on 
account of the reported white elephant, which, let 
me say here, did not materialize, yet the move- 
ment toward the interior began on the day after 
our arrival. We moved slowly — very slowly, for 
the elephant normally does not travel faster than 
about four miles an hour— through heavy, rather 
open forest, and stretches of thinnish woodland, 
where the jungle undergrowth was so dense that 
even the elephants avoided it. Quite the most 
interesting jungle thing I saw on these several 
days of inland travel was the Poh tree, sacred to 
the Siamese because, it is said, under its shade 
Buddha had his last earthly sleep. 

At night we camped in groups; the mahouts 
divided between two, the beaters or scouts, who 
walked, scattered among a dozen others. The 
whole formed a large circle, of which the inner 
part was filled with little bamboo platforms raised 
four or five feet above the ground for sleeping. 
Outside this circle was a larger one around which 
flamed the many separate fires of each group of 
mahouts and beaters, that were used first for cook- 
ing, and kept burning throughout the night as a 
danger signal to prowling beasts, and as an inade- 

2 



18 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

quate protection against mosquitoes, of which 
there were myriads. Choo and I made a group of 
our own, and although he did not exactly fill the 
roll of servant to me, he did my cooking, and kept 
the fire burning. Beyond the outside circle of 
fire grazed the hobbled elephants in the nearby 
jungle. 

The king's mahout had offered me a seat behind 
where he rode on the elephant's neck, with his 
knees just back of its ears, but I preferred to walk, 
and was well repaid by the little side excursions I 
was thus able to make and the many closer inspec- 
tions afforded of small red deer, flitting insects and 
flying birds. For a week we continued our north- 
easterly travel by day and our mosquito fighting 
by night, slowly drawing closer to the section 
where the scouts reported wild elephants in several 
herds; for always as we moved in the day the 
scouts kept well ahead, prospecting. Finally, one 
night Choo made me understand that our outposts, 
so to say, were in touch with the enemy. 

And now began the, to me, only interesting work 
of reconnoitring the elephants; of obtaining posi- 
tive knowledge as to the number of herds, the loca- 
tion of each with relation to the others and to the 
surrounding country, the number of elephants in 
each herd— their size, and their apparent temper 
collectively and individually. 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 19 

Elephant catching in Siam differs quite mate- 
rially in procedure and in difficulties from catch- 
ing elephants in India, where also its economical 
value is appreciated. The Indian Government 
maintains an official department, with men well 
paid to study the ways of elephants and the best 
method of catching and subsequently training 
them ; which means training schools scattered over 
the country. In India no systematic attempt is 
made to consolidate two or more wild herds, but 
when the scouts have discovered one it is stealthily 
surrounded, and held together by a ring of men, 
two about every forty feet, who keep the elephants 
intact, as well as in control, by days of exploding 
guns, and nights of crashing gongs and blazing 
fires. Meanwhile a log keddah (corral) is build- 
ing close at hand with all the speed possible to be 
got out of several hundred natives by a terribly 
earnest white headman who sleeps neither day nor 
night. In fact no one sleeps much in the few 
anxious days between surrounding the herd and 
constructing the corral. From two to four days 
are required to build the keddah, which when com- 
pleted is an eight to ten foot high stockade formed 
of good-sized logs, one end planted firmly in the 
ground, and the whole securely bound together by 
rattan, thus enclosing about an acre of partially 
cleared jungle, with the big trees left standing. 



20 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

Into this keddah, through a funnel-shaped runway 
reaching to the human circle, the frightened, 
scrambling, grunting herd is urged by the beaters 
on tame elephants ; once within, the wild elephants 
are noosed one by one by the legs and tied to trees 
by the catchers mounted on the tame elephants. 
All the while the human circle is in evidence around 
the outside of the keddah to help on the deception 
played upon the huge beasts, that they cannot 
escape. 

The native way of catching elephants both in 
India and in the Far East, is usually by the simple 
means of digging pitfalls along their routes to the 
rivers ; for the elephant is a thirsty beast and when 
in herds makes beaten paths to water, always 
returning by the same way. Thus easily they fall 
into the waylaying pits, which are about eight feet 
wide on the top, six feet wide at the bottom and 
eight feet deep. 

In Siam, catching elephants is a different and an 
easier game for several reasons; because (1) the 
region over which they roam is much more con- 
fined than in India, and (2) as the so-called hunt is 
a periodical event of many years' standing, large 
numbers of jungle elephants have been rounded up 
and corralled so comparatively often as to have 
become semi-tame. Of course there are many in 
every drive that have not been corralled, and some 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 21 

that do not take kindly to the king's utilitarian 
and amusement-making scheme. Aside from the 
white elephant, which is an albino, a freak, there 
are two varieties in Siam: a smallish kind with 
tusks, quite easily broken to work if not too old; 
and a larger, stronger, tuskless species that is not 
so easily handled, is something of a fighter and is 
avoided in the roval hunt in favor of the smaller, 
some of which, however, carry ivory of splendid 
proportions. The Siamese elephant belongs, of 
course, to the Asiatic species, which in size both 
of body and tusks, is inferior to the African. Of 
the Asiatic, the Siamese averages neither so large 
as the Indian nor so small as the Malayan; and 
sometimes its ivory compares favorably with that 
of any species. The largest tusk ever taken from 
a Siamese elephant measures 9 feet, 10J inches in 
length, and 8 inches in diameter at the base, and is 
now in the Royal Museum at Bangkok. Inciden- 
tally I wish to say that almost never have I found 
tusks of any kind of elephant of the same length, 
one showing usually more wear from root digging 
or what not than the other. 

So soon as the scouts brought back word of our 
being in touch with the herds, camp was pitched 
and the tame elephants hobbled ; and then the en- 
tire force spread out till a full one hundred yards 
separated one man from another, making a pains- 



22 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

taking and wide survey of the country within a 
five-mile radius. The camp and the scouts were 
kept some distance from where the elephants had 
been located, and withdrew from their immediate 
neighborhood so fast as others were discovered— 
because the elephant, being mostly nocturnal and 
hence with its senses of smell and touch very 
acutely developed to enable it to distinguish the 
various kinds of trees and shrubs upon which it 
feeds, would be warned by the man scent and move 
off. For that reason our advance party, through 
all the manoeuvres of locating the elephants, be- 
came a thin brown line of scouts. It was not so 
difficult to find the elephants, moving casually in 
herds of varying sizes up hill and down, for they 
are very noisy and destructive; the difficulty was 
to escape detection, which in this preliminary sur- 
vey might result in frightening them away. 

Working in this way the scouts had within ten 
days located one fairly sized herd and two smaller 
ones, besides some scattered, making altogether 
about two hundred and forty. And this successful 
and rather speedy result was not to be credited 
entirely to their efforts on the present hunt; a 
large share being due the system in vogue. These 
men are more or less in touch with the elephants 
most of the time ; in fact, in a measure they are to 
the elephant haunts what the cowboys are to the 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 23 

cattle range. In a broad sense the elephants are 
practically always under their eyes— a very broad 
sense, of course, but they know where to find them 
and the direction of their migrations. Yet some- 
times weeks and months are spent by these ele- 
phant catchers in rounding up and heading stray- 
ing herds preparatory to starting the final gath- 
ering for the drive toward Ayuthia. 

With the three herds located, perhaps five miles 
separating the one on the extreme north from the 
stragglers at the extreme south, the plan of consol- 
idation was begun. For this purpose the thin 
brown line stretched its two halves, one across the 
north and the other to the south of the herds, while 
the tame tuskers and their mahouts covered the 
east approach. As the big herd was at the south, 
the plan was to form a junction by driving the 
two smaller ones and the scattering individuals 
down to the larger. Beginning unobtrusively, it 
was three days before the individuals had joined 
the smaller herds, and it took two days more before 
all these were headed south. Short as was the dis- 
tance, it required six days longer to consolidate 
those herds; patient days and anxious nights, for 
the danger in elephant catching is the beast's ner- 
vous, fearful temperament which subjects him to 
ungovernable fits of panic. Writers of romance 
to the contrary notwithstanding, the elephant is 



24 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

a most undependable beast. Hence everything 
is done quietly, with no sudden movements to 
startle the elephants, or any unnecessary direct- 
ness of approach. The entire effort of gathering 
scattered herds is furtive as much as the circum- 
stances will allow. Once the elephants have been 
got together into one herd, the line of scouts may 
become a circle with a human post and a lurid 
brush fire alternating every ten yards around its 
length ; or it may simply herd the beasts according 
to their temper. But no noise is made except in 
cases where elephants move too closely to the 
limits of the enclosure; elephants have broken 
through and escaped, but rarely. 

Choo's fitness for the post of head mahout was 
evident from the day of leaving the home camp 
back on the little river; but only when the drive of 
the consolidated herd toward Ayuthia began, did 
his consummate skill manifest itself. His hand- 
ling not only of his own elephant, but his execu- 
tive ability in placing the other elephants, and the 
beaters, made perfectly easy of comprehension 
why he had advanced so rapidly among his fellows. 
Although he was kind to his elephants, Choo never 
showed them the slightest affection ; holding them 
under the strictest discipline and exacting instant 
obedience under penalty of severe punishment. A 
trainer of reputation with whom in my boyhood 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 25 

days I was on terms of daily intercourse, once told 
me that there are two things you must never do 
with an elephant if you wish to control it. First, 
never disappoint, and second, never show affec- 
tion for it, as the animal 's own regard for you 
will be sure to diminish in proportion as you are 
demonstrative. Certainly Choo achieved brilliant 
success with just such methods. Often, however, 
he talked to his elephants, sometimes encour- 
agingly, sometimes sharply, as the occasion war- 
ranted, but never tenderly. His usual tone was a 
complaining one, and though I could not under- 
stand what he said, I have heard him for several 
minutes at a time in an uninterrupted high-pitched 
oratorical effort, rather suggesting a father read- 
ing the riot act to a sluggard son. Perhaps it was 
my imagination— and at all events I do not offer 
it as a contribution to the new school of animal 
story-tellers— but it always seemed to me that 
Choo's mount showed unmistakable contrition in 
the, as it appeared to me, absurdly abashed expres- 
sion which came into his face, and the droopiness 
of the pendent trunk. Often I went into roars of 
laughter at sight of Choo leaning over the ele- 
phant's ear solemnly lecturing, while the beast 
blinked its uninviting little pig eyes. At such 
times the king's mahout included me in the tale 
of woe he confided to the elephant's great flopping 



26 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

ear. Always Choo wore an amulet of jade and 
now that he had doffed his yellow silk jacket and, 
like the others, wore a cotton panung, with bare 
upper body, I noticed that he also kept around his 
neck a tiny human image of a kind I had seen 
Buddhist priests making of tree roots and selling 
to ease native superstition. 

Choo's plan of driving the herd was masterful; 
there was no confusion, nor any sign to indicate 
that the task was difficult. Perhaps a half mile 
area was occupied by the gathered elephants when 
the final drive began, and it was not possible from 
one side of the herd to see the other side of the 
jungle. Choo placed four of his largest tame 
tuskers, two at each opening, as extreme western 
outposts of the driving line, and somewhat closer 
to the herd. The remaining tuskers were divided 
among the north and south sides and the rear, with 
more of them at the sides than in the rear, where 
were the most beaters. So far as I could see, the 
only apparent anxious movement was in getting 
the herd started, and that was finally accomplished 
by half a dozen tame elephants taking positions at 
the head of the lot. In fact, Choo kept several of 
these at the head of the herd throughout the drive 
to the river. Sometimes the elephants would 
move steadily as though really travelling with 
an objective in view; again they fed along leis- 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 27 

urely, scattered over the considerable enclosure 
within the driving lines. Sometimes several 
would come against one side of the driving line 
and be startled into sudden retreat, or stand in 
questioning attitude before backing into the main 
body. But always the herd moved on, day and 
night, though sometimes not over five miles would 
be covered in twelve hours. It was a leisurely 
saunter, but never a moment did Choo relax his 
vigilance. 

There was not the amount of trumpeting some of 
us have been led to believe. Once in a while the 
shrill trunk call of fear would be heard, but more 
often the low mouth note, a sort of grunting or 
questioning sound— and not at all on the drive 
toward the river was heard the throat roar of rage. 
It was, in fact, because of Choo 's generalship and 
individual skill, a very well behaved herd of ele- 
phants that pursued its snail-like course river- 
wards without accident. 

On the tenth day Choo brought the herd to the 
jungle at the river's edge just in front of Ayuthia, 
and early the following morning four Siamese im- 
perial flags floated above the kraal as signal for 
him to begin the final drive into the enclosure. In- 
stanter the camp was in a buzz of serious-faced 
preparation for the final, and in some respects the 
most difficult, stage of the elephant catching ; weeks 



28 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

of patient toil and a successful drive might be lost 
by mishap in getting the herd across the river and 
the remaining couple of miles. The king's mahout 
prepared for the test with the apparent confidence 
and thoroughness that had stamped all his work 
on the drive. First he put two men on each of 
his score of tame elephants, the second carrying 
a bamboo pole; then he sent three of the tuskers 
thus equipped into the side of the herd nearest 
the river. These made their way slowly, never 
hurriedly, yet always determinedly, among the 
wild ones, cutting out a group of eight which they 
headed riverwards. Then two other tuskers en- 
tered the herd and began similar tactics ; and 
simultaneously the tuskers guarding the outer 
circle, and the beaters crowded forward. Some- 
times one of the wild ones, being moved outside of 
the herd in the lead, would escape and return. 
Then shone out in bold relief Choo's unflinching 
grasp of his business. There would be no chasing 
of that escaped elephant, no hustling movements 
by any one to suggest that the unusual had oc- 
curred; but three other mounted tuskers would 
work into and through the herd in apparent aim- 
lessness, yet always toward the truant. The es- 
caped one might shift about among its fellows, 
might dodge, but sooner or later it found itself 
between two of the tuskers, with the third at its 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 29 

stern; and eventually it was back whence it had 
broken away, all without fuss or excitement by 
either the tuskers or the mahouts on their backs. 
Sometimes an hour would be consumed returning 
such a one ; but return was inevitable. 

Choo knew, with the river once in sight, at least 
half his troubles would be over, for elephants take 
to water like ducks ; so he maintained the arrange- 
ment of beaters and the several tuskers in the lead, 
the lot travelling at not more than a mile an hour, 
until the bank was reached, where the tuskers 
slipped to one side and the entire herd was soon 
in the river, bathing and blowing water through 
their trunks, to indicate in elephantine way their 
joy of living. With spectators on the banks and 
afloat in numberless small craft, the drive out of 
the river into the wings running down to the kraal 
entrance is always a critical period, so Choo per- 
mitted the herd to wallow and squirt water over 
themselves to their heart's content; for nearly an 
hour in fact. Then he placed fully half his tuskers 
at the head of the herd and with the remainder 
covering its rear, began the move toward the kraal, 
less than a quarter mile distant. Happily for 
Choo the bath had put the elephants in a very com- 
fortable frame of mind and they moved forward, 
following the tuskers unhesitatingly out on to the 
bank, despite the fact that all Ayuthia and many 



30 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

besides were holiday making within a few hundred 
yards. As the herd swung ponderously along into 
the funnel-shaped enclosure— which is made of 
massive twelve-foot high posts firmly planted 
every two feet and leads directly to the gate of the 
kraal— Choo withdrew from the lead to the rear 
all save two of the tame elephants. The herd 
moved peacefully however until a big female, with 
its little calf walking almost concealed under the 
mother's stomach, endeavored to break back from 
the side, and made quite a commotion when checked 
by the rear guard. Although no general panic 
resulted, the row seemed to get on the nerves of 
the elephants, whose questioning, expectant ex- 
pression of countenance suggested painful timor- 
ousness. As the herd neared the kraal, getting 
more compact all the time in the narrowing run- 
way, the elephants appeared to sense a trap, 
crowding together and breaking into groups 
against the heavy posts, so that Choo had to bring 
up several of his tuskers whose mahouts prodded 
the obstreperous ones into harmony. It was 
pretty much of a rough-and-tumble scramble at 
the kraal gate, large enough to admit only one ele- 
phant at a time. Perhaps a third of the herd fol- 
lowed the leading tame tuskers into the kraal, but 
the remainder got jammed, and the ensuing scene 
of confusion and of wild endeavor to get some- 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 31 

where, tested the rear guard to its utmost and must 
have given the king's mahout at least a few uncom- 
fortable moments. At length, however, the kraal 
gate closed on the last elephant, and Choo had 
brought his part of the royal hunt to a successful 
conclusion. 

The Ayuthia elephant kraal was built over one 
hundred years ago, not long after the seat of the 
Siamese Government had been moved from this 
ancient capital to Bangkok. It is an enclosure 
about two hundred feet square, surrounded by a 
brick wall averaging perhaps fourteen to fifteen 
feet in thickness, with a height of nine feet. On 
each side is a parapet forming an excellent prome- 
nade under the shade of some large trees. About 
twenty feet inside the brick wall is a smaller en- 
closure made of huge teak logs, planted firmly, so 
as to leave just space enough between every two 
for a man to squeeze through, and standing above 
the ground full twelve feet. In the centre of the 
kraal is a little house strongly surrounded by logs, 
which sometimes the superintendent in charge uses 
to direct the selection of elephants to be caught, 
and sometimes becomes a house of refuge; and 
always it serves to break up the herd rounded about 
it. Three sides of this great square are reached by 
steps and open to the public. Along one side of 
the wall and over the centre of it is a covered plat- 



32 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

form which contains the royal box, and other more 
democratic accommodations for natives of nobility 
and foreigners. There are two entrances to the en- 
closure, both guarded by very strong heavy timber 
gates hung on pins from crossbeams above, which, 
closed, reach below the ground level, where they 
fit into a groove. Opened, they make an inverted 
V, just large enough to permit the passage of one 
elephant at a time. 

The attitude of a herd on first realizing that it 
has been trapped and cannot escape, varies accord- 
ing to the temperaments of its members, and is 
enlightening, not to say enlivening, at times, to 
the onlooker. For the herd, which without serious 
opposition has permitted itself to be taken from 
its jungle and driven, uttering scarcely an objec- 
tion through days and nights, will, when once in 
the kraal, throw off its good manners and become 
rampant. Some fight the posts, some fight one 
another; in groups they surge against the stout 
sides of the enclosure, grunting prodigiously, and 
wherever a venturesome spectator shows a head 
between the post, he is charged. Not all the herd 
are so violent. Some show their perturbation by 
thrusting their trunks down into their stomach res- 
ervoir and drawing forth watex which they squirt 
over their backs; others express contempt for 
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THE KING'S MAHOUT 33 

they blow over everything in sight, including their 
own legs ; some utter the mouthing low note ; some 
rap the ground with their trunks, thus knocking 
out several peculiar rattling crackling high notes. 
The calves squeak through their little trunks 
shrilly and frequently. 

The programme extends over three days ; on the 
first, after the herd is corralled, the head mogul of 
the royal stables points out the young elephants to 
be caught ; on the second the selected captives are 
noosed; and on the third day the remaining ele- 
phants are driven out and across the river and into 
the jungle to wander at will, until such time as 
his majesty issues commands for another royal 
" hunt." 

The most interesting feature of the performance 
in the kraal is the work of the trained elephants. 
You would never think from the peaceful, mild 
countenance of the tusker, that he is in league with 
the men on his back. He is the most casual thing 
you can imagine, sidling up to the victim in manner 
unpremeditated and entirely friendly. It is the 
same unhurried, unrelaxing work he did in the 
jungle under the eye of Choo, who is now no doubt 
viewing proceedings critically from the covered 
platform. Sometimes a cantankerous elephant is 
looking for a fight ; and then the tusker is a busi- 
ness-like and effective bouncer, and such " rough 

3 



34 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

house " as results on this occasion you have not 
elsewhere seen. The tusker moves not swiftly but 
with overwhelming momentum, and not infre- 
quently an offender is sent quite off its feet sur- 
prised and wiser, rolling in the dust. 

The actual catching consists in slipping the 
noose, held at the end of the bamboo prod by the 
second mahout, over the elephant's hind foot. 
When the noose is successfully placed it is at once 
pulled taut, and the end of the rope which has been 
attached to the tame tusker's rattan girdle is let go, 
to be subsequently, as occasion offers, carried by 
a dismounted mahout to the edge of the enclosure, 
where other attendants fasten it to the post, and 
take in the slack as the captive is pushed back by 
the tuskers. When the victim is snubbed fairly 
close to the post comes the putting on of the rattan 
collar, which is accomplished by mahouts mounted 
on two tame elephants that hold the victim between 
them. With the collar lashed on, the captive is 
butted out through the gate, where he is pinned 
between the tuskers and fastened to them by the 
collars they also wear for this very purpose. Then, 
thus handcuffed, with noose rope trailing and a 
third elephant behind to keep him moving, the 
captive is carried off to the stables and securely 
tied up. And so endeth the liberty of that 
elephant. 



THE KING'S MAHOUT 35 

Sometimes the mahout drops to the ground 
under cover of his tusker and slips the noose ; and 
it is not so easy as it reads. The elephant's foot 
must be caught off the ground before the noose is 
thrown, and sluggish as he seems, the elephant 
kicks like chain lightning ; the kick of a mule is a 
love pat by comparison. It is a curious but sub- 
stantiated fact that, while at times there is much 
fighting, with mahouts, tame tuskers and the wild 
elephants in mixed melee, it is rare that a mahout, 
so long as he is mounted, is injured. Although the 
mahouts could easily be pulled off their perches, 
the wild elephants never make even an attempt to 
do so in the kraal; but the dismounted mahout 
needs to look out for both trunk and feet. Acci- 
dents are rare, although sometimes when the ele- 
phants are being driven out one will break away 
and require a great deal of prodding and rough 
handling before brought back into the herd. 
Sometimes in little groups of twos or threes ele- 
phants will rush at the shifting spectators who 
crowd near them; for the Siamese are rather fond 
of running up, by way of a dare, to an elephant 
coming out of the narrow gateway and dodging its 
short-lived pursuit before the mahouts head it back 
into the herd. This is not so dangerous a game 
as it sounds, for the elephant is by no means the 
swiftest thing on earth and a man can easily dodge 



36 THE KING'S MAHOUT 

it if the ground is smooth and firm. Yet fatal 
accidents have occurred to the over-confident who 
did not dodge fast enough. And there have been 
times, too, when, enraged at their failure to catch 
the tormentor, the elephants have wreaked their 
vengeance on nearby fences or buildings or any- 
thing happening to be within reach. 

The process of elephant catching in India as well 
as in Siam tends to rather undermine one's settled 
notions of elephant sagacity, and to create instead 
the feeling that a lot of sentimental nonsense and 
misleading, ignorantly conceived animal stories, 
have been put forth about My Lord, the Elephant. 
The literal truth is that the elephant, for all its 
reputed intelligence, is driven into places that no 
other wild animal could possibly be induced to 
enter; is, in its native jungle, held captive within 
a circle through which it could pass without an 
effort, and is bullied into uncomplaining obedience 
by a force the smallest fraction of its own numbers. 
Part of this is, no doubt, due to its exceedingly sus- 
picious nature ; the other part because of its lack 
of originality, which latter defect, however, has 
great value for man since it accounts for the ele- 
phant's notable amenability to discipline. 



CHAPTER II 
THROUGH THE KLAWNGS OF SIAM 

WATERMEN more expert than the Siamese 
do not live in the Orient, nor in the world 
indeed, unless it be among the Esquimaux, or the 
South Sea Islanders ; and Saw Swee Ann was one 
of the most skilful I met during my wanderings in 
the Far East. Saw, for so I at once abbreviated 
his tuneful name, was a " saked " man and bore 
the indelible mark which all those wear who serve 
royalty without pay. Not that it is a service of 
especial honor, but a species of traditional slavery. 
Nor does every saked man serve the king. In the 
intricate and far-reaching systems, which cross-sec- 
tion the social fabric of Oriental peoples and per- 
plex the western mind, are provided separate and 
distinct places for every class of native mankind 
from royalty to the lowliest subject. Siam has 
perhaps more than its share of such subdivisions, 
and so it happened that Saw also had his servant, 
for that man is indeed low in Siam's social scale 
who is without a servitor. Saked men, however, 
are those in the service of the king or those at- 
tached to the person of a noble or a tribal head. 
Those who serve about the royal palace, and those 

37 



38 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS 

in any of the companies connected more or less 
directly with the king, are marked on the left side, 
a little below the armpit ; all others are marked on 
the fore-arm. And the mark (" sak "), always 
the insignia of him in whose service the man is 
enrolled, is pricked into the skin, and then made 
permanent by applying a mixture of India ink and 
peacock bile. None but a native, I believe, may 
be a saked man, and as I travelled and studied the 
country, it seemed to me that in the course of 
another quarter century pure Siamese blood will 
flow in the veins only of royalty and of the poor- 
est of Siam's inhabitants. The average native is 
an indolent, improvident, good-natured creature, 
happy so long as he has enough to keep his stomach 
from protesting, and a few ticals to gamble with. 
Great Britain, fortunately for the commercial 
world, controls the export trade of Siam, and the 
Chinaman is its industrial backbone. More than 
that, John Chinaman is becoming Siam's small 
trader as well, and father of the only dependable 
laborer growing up on its soil; for the Siamese 
woman marries him in preference to her own coun- 
trymen, because he makes a better husband. The 
result of this union is called a Simo-Chinese, but 
really is a Chinaman in looks, in habits— so 
strongly does the son of Confucius put his stamp 
upon his progeny. Thus the native Siamese is 



OF SIAM 39 

being crowded into the lowest walks of life. Even 
in Bangkok, the capital, where reside the king and 
all Government officials, he finds it difficult to 
retain prestige, while the town itself is taking on 
the motley appearance of an Oriental city turned 
topsy-turvy by electric lights and trolley cars pene- 
trating quarters of such squalor, one marvels that 
life can exist there at all. 

It is a strange, half -floating city, this Bangkok, 
overrun by pariah dogs and crows ; Oriental despite 
its improvements, and one of the most interesting 
places in the Par East. Yet a sad city for the 
visitor with mind apart from " margins " and time 
saving machinery. At every turning are evidences 
of the decay of native art, and in their stead com- 
monplace things bearing the legend " Made in Ger- 
many." One would scarcely believe to-day, after 
a visit to Bangkok, that at one time the Siamese 
were distinguished, even among Asiatic artisans, 
in silk weaving, in ceramics, in ivory carving and 
in silversmithing. Yet the royal museum, with 
treasures not found elsewhere in the world, serves 
to remind one how far Siam has fallen from the 
place she once occupied among art-producing na- 
tions. When, therefore, we behold a people dis- 
couraging and losing their splendid ancient arts, 
and giving instead a ready market to the cheap 
trash which comes out of the West, we may hardly 



40 THKOUGH THE KLAWNGS 

look for native industrial development. The day 
is probably not far off when Siam's industries will 
depend upon foreign guidance; and if England, 
not France, supplies that impetus— the world will 
be the gainer. 

By those people who delight in comparisons— 
and read travellers' folders especially compiled for 
tourist consumption— Bangkok has been variously 
called the Constantinople of Asia and the Venice 
of the East. True, there is pertinence in both com- 
parisons. Certainly Bangkok is the home of the 
gaunt and ugly pariah dog, which spends its day 
foraging to keep life in its mangy carcass ; multi- 
plying meanwhile with the fecundity of cats in a 
tropical clime, because the Buddha faith forbids 
its killing. Nor are outcast dogs the only pests 
of Bangkok, to grow numerous because of native 
religious prejudice ; more noisy crows perch of an 
early morning on your window casing, than in 
the space of a day hover near the " Towers of 
Silence " at Bombay awaiting the pleasure of the 
vultures that are feeding on the earthly remains 
of one that has died in the faith of the Parsee. 

Some people imagine Bangkok a city of islands ; 
hence I suppose the comparison with Venice. 
Bangkok has, indeed, a very large floating popu- 
lation, and the city is intersected by many 
klawngs or canals; at certain times of the year, 



OF SIAM 41 

too, perhaps half the town and the surrounding 
country is under a foot or more of tide-water. 
Yet the larger half of Bangkok's four hundred 
thousand citizens lives on land, though the easiest 
means of travel throughout much of the city is by 
boat, and in fact, half of it is reached in no other 
way. The Siamese woman of the lower class daily 
paddles her own canoe to the market ; or, if of the 
better class, she goes in a " rua chang," the com- 
mon passenger boat which, together with the jin- 
rikisha, the land hack throughout the Orient, is 
included among the household possessions of every 
Siamese who can afford them. 

The native city has a surrounding wall nine feet 
thick and twelve feet high, and but a single street 
where a horse and wagon can travel. For the rest, 
the streets are no wider than needed for passing 
jinrikishas, and at least one of them, Sampeng, 
is too narrow for comfort— even for such traffic. 
Most native thoroughfares are mere passage ways, 
trails ; for the Siamese by virtue of their swamp- 
like lower country travel single file, first by neces- 
sity, afterwards through habit. 

Sampeng is a street of character; it is the Bow- 
ery of Bangkok. It is a continuous bazar from 
end to end, with many alley-like tributaries, lead- 
ing, for the greater number, to open-air theatres, 
or to large crowded rooms where natives squat to 



42 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS 

gamble, and a band sends up uninterrupted melody 
from out of the darkness at the rear. But the most 
imposing array of shops is on the Meinam River, 
the Strand of Bangkok, along which for six miles 
the city spreads itself in floating shops. On the 
klawngs, that wind throughout the. city with the 
deviousness, and apparently with all the aimless- 
ness of a cow path, the natives rear single-room 
veranda-like houses on stilts, six to eight feet above 
the "water. The Siamese builds his house of one 
story and on stilts for several reasons. The first, 
no doubt, is to avoid the unpardonable sin of living 
on a lower story while an upper one is occupied by 
other human beings, especially women, who, in 
Siam, are not regarded as of much importance. 
The second, and I should say the most practical, 
if not the most aesthetic, reason is to have a waste 
gate of easy access for the continually flowing sa- 
liva from betel-nut chewing, and household refuse, 
which may thus be easily disposed of through the 
crevices of an openly constructed floor. And not 
the least advantage of this style of house, is the 
opportunity its elevation affords dogs, pigs, crows 
and other scavengers, whose immunity from death 
at the hands of man is only another proof of many 
why Buddha should have given a religion to this 
people. A lesser reason is to secure a higher and 
a healthier floor to live upon above the damp soil ; 




ALONG THE KLAWNG (CANAL). 
Fully half of the native house usually develops into verandah. 



1 — fit 

1 


^ 




aax 4 mm m^^mm * ^ 'Jk 


ii 


SGI - 1 ^w «« 


i— . .  '.' . ^"^- Jmmmmm 


■Mm ^^Iteiii-i. s*Jk 



A GAMBLING PLACE OFF THE SAMPENG IN BANGKOK. 

In the background a band is hard at work entertaining the patrons. 



OF SIAM 43 

and no doubt yet another is to escape from the 
snakes, toads, worms and multitude of other crawl- 
ing things which drag their length over the soil of 
lower Siam. 

Past the floating houses along the river, and 
among the stilted houses through the klawngs, 
flows a scarcely ever ending procession of passen- 
ger boats, house boats, freight boats and canoes of 
all sizes, for in Siam may be seen the most remark- 
able variety of water craft in the world; and, I 
may add, of the most graceful lines. Unless it be 
the Burman, really of about the same stock, no 
builder anywhere compares with the Siamese, who 
make their boats large and small of teak, and give 
them lines unequalled. Here is one art at least in 
which the natives continue proficient. 

My travels have never brought me among a peo- 
ple seemingly more contented, more happy, than 
these Siamese. Their wants are few and easily 
supplied: a single piece of stuff completes the 
scanty, inexpensive costume; rice and fruit and 
fish, to be had for almost nothing, constitute the 
food ; betel-nuts, which high and low chew, may be 
gathered. Life moves very easily for them, and 
they go to their death with unbounded faith that 
Buddha will take care of the next world, wherever 
it may be. Living, they hold to their simple faith 
as conscientiously as the Mohammedans, which is 



44 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS 

tantamount to saying more conscientiously than 
the Christian sects. Dying, they pass with confi- 
dence into the unknown; and their bodies are 
burned and the ashes scattered to the four winds. 
Their attitude towards life is truly philosophic; 
and friends left behind conduct themselves with 
equal sanity. If they cannot afford a private 
funeral pyre, there are public ghats where the 
bodies of their relatives and friends may be 
burned. To be sure, at some of these ghats vul- 
tures aid in the disposal of the late lamented, but 
as a rule fire consumes the greater part of the flesh. 
The Siamese are not a sporting nation, but if there 
is any time when they may be said to hold sports 
it is at a private cremation. As Hibernian clans of 
Tammany reckon the social importance and polit- 
ical pull of a departed brother by the number of 
carriages his friends muster at the funeral, so in 
Siam the scale and variety of the funeral festivities 
mark the wealth and status and the grief of the 
bereaved family. The pyre is built within the pri- 
vate walls of the family estate, and after the simple 
ceremony of the yellow-robed priests of Buddha, 
the nearest male relative applies the match. Then 
while the flames crackle the grieving family and 
friends of the deceased make merry over the 
cakes and sweetmeats and wines provided for the 
occasion, and sometimes hired talent performs at 



OF SI AM 45 

different games. The bodies of those intended for 
private cremation are embalmed and usually kept 
for some time, even for many months. A Sia- 
mese gentleman in inviting me to the forthcoming 
conflagration of a brother, added that the remains 
had been awaiting combustion for a year! 

All Siam is divided into three parts: (1) That 
tributary to and dependent upon the Mekong 
River, which rises far in the north and with a 
great bend to the east flows south, emptying 
through several mouths into the China Sea, after 
a devious course of two thousand five hundred 
miles. (2) That upon the Salwin Eiver, which 
also rises far in the north, not more than one hun- 
dred and fifty to two hundred miles to the west 
of the Mekong's source, and flowing south sweeps 
to the west, into the Bay of Bengal. And (3) that 
upon the Meinam— mother of rivers— which rises 
not so far in the north and flows due south, empty- 
ing into the Gulf of Siam. Politically speaking, 
all Siam appears to be divided: (1) Into that 
(Mekong) which French jingoism seems to view 
as destined by especial Providence as solely for 
their colonial exploitation; (2) that (Meinam) 
which no one disputes as being purely Siamese; 
and (3) that (Salwin) which serves as the extreme 
boundary of British jurisdiction. 

French geographers since 1866 have been re- 



46 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS 

drafting Siam, and gradually narrowing the lines 
of native territory. Ever since the French 
marched into Anam, where they did not belong, 
and became inoculated with territorial expansion, 
there has been a constant dispute as to where 
French jurisdiction ends and Siamese begins over 
Mekong River way. Thus, with Burma (Eng- 
land) on the north and west, and France on the 
east, the buffer-state-condition of Siam is not the 
happiest one for its king. But I wish to go on 
record before dismissing this side of the subject, 
as saying that whereas Great Britain's influence 
has developed trade and worked to the country's 
prosperity, the influence of France, seen largely in 
the exaction of duties and of tribute for petty 
offences, has had by comparison an embarrassing 
and retarding effect. In a word, the influence of 
Great Britain makes for the betterment of Siam, 
whereas the influence of France appears to have 
been detrimental to Siam, and of no appreciable 
benefit to France. If the past be accepted as a 
criterion, it would be an unfortunate day for the 
commercial world if the influence of France in 
Siam were to be extended. In fact, the more that 
influence is narrowed the better for Siam and the 
world. 

Life clusters along the rivers, throughout Siam. 
There is comparatively little overland travel in 



OF SIAM 47 

the north and almost none in the south. Thus, 
these three rivers constitute Siam's highways 
north and south, while many tributary rivers and 
klawngs of various width and length make east 
and west connections all through the lower country. 
It was through a series of such klawngs and 
tributary rivers that Saw Swee Ann, the saked 
man, piloted me to Ratburi, where I intended or- 
ganizing a buffalo-hunting expedition into the wes- 
tern border of Siam and on into Burma. My boat- 
ing party, besides Saw and his servant, a Siamese 
boy of say twelve years, who was forever balanc- 
ing himself on the gunwale of the tug, consisted of 
two Simo-Chinese boatmen, a Siamese engineer- 
stoker, a Chinese cook and my servants. My in- 
terpreter, Nai Kawn, a graduate of Lehigh, and I, 
lived on the house-boat with one man bow and 
stern; the balance of the party remained aboard 
the steam launch. The house-boat, next to the rua 
chang, is the most common river craft from end to 
end of Siam, and the one commonly used by the 
traveller. It may be any size, from one manned 
by two oarsmen to one requiring eight, four each 
bow and stern. In the latter case there is a small 
bit of deck room at either end of the house— none 
too much, however, to permit of the free use of 
your hands with murderous intent upon the mos- 
quitoes, which are so big, so numerous, so vicious 



48 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS 

and so persistent, that you feel that you have never 
heard of mosquitoes before, even though you may 
have stopped a week's end nearby the New Jersey 
meadows, or ventured into the region of Great 
Slave Lake in the springtime. As a rule the house 
on these boats is barrel-shaped, erected amidships, 
and made of atap leaves, supplied by the palm-like 
plant which grows all over this country and is the 
Siamese shingle. The boat is propelled by oars, 
bow and stern, set in a twisted cane rowlock fas- 
tened to the top of a post about eighteen inches or 
more high and set on the port side of the stern and 
on the starboard side of the bow. The oarsmen 
send the boat forward by pushing the oar from 
them, bringing it back with the familiar canoe- 
paddle motion without taking the blade out of the 
water. It is much like the stroke of the Venetian 
gondolier, only the boat movement of the Siamese 
is more rhythmical, and becomes graceful in the 
rua chang, where the left foot of the oarsman 
clears the deck on the forward push and swings 
in unison with the blade. There is less oppor- 
tunity for pleasing motion on the house-boat where 
strength rather than grace is the desideratum, and 
in freight boats laden with rice— which are simply 
house-boats built heavier and broader— the men 
heave on their oars without any other regard than 
getting the boat along ; and this they do with nota- 



OF SIAM 49 

ble success. I have seen freight boats of large size 
and heavily laden with padi (rice) moving along 
the klawngs propelled by two men, one bow and one 
stern. In open rivers these padi boats sometimes, 
with a fair wind, hoist sail. 

I have said that Saw was an expert waterman, 
but that does not sufficiently describe the skill he 
displayed in taking us safely around the many 
turns of the klawngs, and in avoiding collision 
with the innumerable and often recklessly piloted 
craft we were continuously meeting. Seldom have 
I had a more interesting trip than through these 
klawngs, literally alive in parts with boats of all 
sizes, carrying crews of men, women and children. 
Every now and again we passed a settlement, and 
always there was human life on the water and 
jungle-life along the banks. Now we come to a 
squat, heavily laden rice-boat moving ponderously, 
yet steadily under the two oars of its crew of one 
Chinaman and a single Simo-Chinese. Then an im- 
portant looking house-boat with teak instead of the 
usual atap top covering, and crew of four China- 
men, stripped to the buff, working industriously, 
passes us moving smartly; on its deck stretch 
two smoking Siamese officials coming down from 
the Burman border to report at Bangkok. Again, 
a freighter, carrying squared logs of teak, is creep- 
ing along its laborious way, turning corners awk- 

4 



50 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS 

wardly, carefully, and yet with consummate skill. 
Always we were meeting peddlers' boats somewhat 
of the rua chang type, sunk almost to the gunwales 
under their loads of fruit or betel-nuts or cocoa- 
nuts, and darting alongside of and among the jour- 
neying craft of the klawng. But the boat most 
commonly met is a short, narrow dug-out, flat at 
both ends and shallow. The life on the boats is 
as interesting as the boats themselves. As a rule 
Chinamen furnish the motive power with here and 
there a Tamil (native of Madras, India), for all 
types except the peddling rua chang and the dug- 
outs, which are generally manned by Siamese, and 
as frequently as not by women, who form a large 
part of the floating population in the smaller craft. 
Another boat, a little longer than the dug-out, but 
of the same character and very numerous, was 
almost always propelled by women, of which we 
saw a great many. It seemed to be the house-boat 
of the poorer native, and I often passed one with 
its little charcoal stove, in full blast, boiling the 
rice, on the tiny deck at the stern, while a lone 
woman managed the paddle and the domestic econ- 
omy of the establishment simultaneously, and a tot 
of a baby toddled about, apparently in danger of 
toppling overboard every instant yet never did.. 
Although the boat had not more than two or three 
inches freeboard and often rocked and jumped 



OF SIAM 51 

alarmingly in the waves made by passing craft, 
kettles, knives and babies adhered to its deck as if 
fastened. 

As to the obliging nature and the friendliness 
of these Siamese, an experience I had one night 
will speak for itself. To save time I hired a steam 
launch at Bangkok to tow us. If I were making 
the trip over again at the same season I should 
confine myself to human motive power, for at given 
periods of the year the changing tides leave the 
klawngs so shallow that the deeper-draught launch 
scrapes the mud bottom more or less of the time : 
and, with a Siamese crew, to scrape means to 
stick, for urgency is an unknown element in their 
mental equipment. We stuck in the mud with 
such exasperating frequency that I always took ad- 
vantage of good water, even though it came in the 
night. Thus we travelled a great deal when others 
were tied up sleeping— somewhat to the disgust of 
my crew, even of Saw Swee Ann, who didn't like 
to miss the evening of gossiping and smoking and 
foraging ashore, in which he always indulged when 
we laid up at a settlement. One night nearing 
some houses we scraped bottom and soon the launch 
stopped, but from the fact that we were well over 
toward the side of the bank I believed it possible 
to get off into the deeper water of the centre and 
under way before the falling tide really held us. 



52 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS 

So I urged the crew to effort, and Nai Kawn, who 
was an exceptionally energetic Siamese and proved 
a treasure in more ways than one, bombarded them 
with native expletives and other impelling terms, 
though without the desired result. And so we 
gradually settled in the mud. While thus hung 
up, an old man and woman came paddling up to us 
in one of the little ten or twelve-foot long dug-outs, 
heaped high amidships with cocoanuts. There 
seemed hardly more than an inch or so of freeboard 
anywhere between bow and stern, yet those two 
friendly old souls, standing respectively on the bow 
and stern of their boat, pushed and shoved, and 
lifted and pushed again— meanwhile keeping their 
own little craft under them without so much as 
disturbing a single cocoanut— until they moved 
our unwieldly launch into deeper water. All that 
they would take in return for their aid was a little 
tobacco. Such was my experience wherever I 
went in Siam. I always found the pure-blooded 
natives obliging, good-natured and the reverse of 
avaricious. If the surrounding country was fa- 
miliar or the thing I asked within their daily 
knowledge, their readiness to assist was ever in 
evidence. On the other hand, I could not hire 
them for love or money to go inland beyond points 
they had not traversed or which their fathers 
before them had not penetrated. And the mixed 



OF SIAM 53 

breed of native I did find inland was less depend- 
able and very much less honest, not honest at all 
in fact. 

Always, where we could, we tied up for the night 
at the house of an " umper " (a small official who 
answers to the Government for the peace of his 
settlement), and as I was travelling under the pro- 
tection of the king, we were never molested by 
thieves with which the klawngs are well infested. 
On the rivers, on the klawngs, always as we jour- 
neyed, we came at intervals to joss houses for 
worshipful Chinamen, rest houses for pilgrim 
Buddhist priests, and " prachadis " standing to 
emphasize this people's unending propitiation of 
their patron gods. If there is a dominant trait 
in Siamese character it is that of " making merit." 
The one thought of their religious life is to do 
something that will temper the ill fortune which, 
the philosophy of life Buddha teaches, is pretty 
sure to come mortal's way. Hence, always the 
Siamese is seeking favor in the eyes of those im- 
mortals whom he believes able to influence his joys 
and his sorrows ; therefore over all Siam you will 
find little spire-shaped monuments (prachadis), 
built to propitiate the gods, to make merit, and 
rudely fashioned after the slender peaks of the 
" wats," which are convents for the Buddhist 
priests and worshipful temples for the people. 



54 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS 

The exterior decorations of these wats is fanciful 
and not always pleasing, but the interior usually 
presents a lavish display of gold and silver orna- 
ments. Wat Phra Keo in Bangkok has a fortune 
in vases, candelabra and altar vessels ; not to men- 
tion innumerable gold statues of Buddha, or the 
Emerald Image of the presiding deity, with its jade 
body and eyes of emeralds. Countless little brass 
bells hung around the eaves of this wat tinkle 
softly with every passing breeze, and you enter the 
temple through mother-of-pearl inlaid ebony doors 
of a ton weight. Wats are for the more settled 
sections, but prachadis of uniform model but vary- 
ing size I found everywhere in Bangkok, on the 
rivers, the klawngs, in the settlements, even on the 
road to the jungle. Prachadis marked my path, 
in fact, to the very edge of habitation. They are 
built of a kind of earthen composition, often 
fantastically decorated with broken bits of differ- 
ent colored china, but may be as low as three feet 
or so high as thirty feet, according to the material 
prosperity of the supplicant. The more of these 
one man builds the more merit he makes, conse- 
quently he builds as frequently as the remorseful 
spirit moves and the purse permits. I recall one 
small bit of ground belonging to a Siamese on the 
outskirts of Bangkok that looks like a chess board, 
so closely placed are the tokens of his merit 



OF SIAM 55 

making. In the small settlements these sacred 
spires are less elaborate, and at the edges they 
cease to exist in the common type and become little 
altars, built of bamboo and rattan and cane or other 
material immediately at hand. Many a time, jour- 
neying inland, did I come to one of these simple 
little structures, built in religious fervor, with an 
ear-ring, or an amulet made of bamboo, or perhaps 
only a piece of fruit or a bit of root, or a small rag, 
offered in all contrition and faith and humility, 
with the mark of the devotee, so that all the pass- 
ing world might know that Lim Kay Thai, or Low 
Poh Jim, or other wandering child of Buddha had 
left here the token of his merit making. And 
these little altars stand so long as the elements 
permit, for none would dare or even think of dis- 
turbing them. Another of the commendable traits 
of this simple people. Where such credulity 
abounds, it is natural to find a plenty of priests; 
if they were fewer the poor Siamese would be 
better off, for among these yellow-robed holy men 
of Buddha are many that have been attracted to 
the cloth because of the easy living it assures. 
Everywhere you meet him, the priest, swathed in 
yellow cotton, making his daily calls for contribu- 
tions of food; or at the wats in groups you see 
them standing silently with bronze bowl held out 
for rice, and a netted bag at girdle for fruit offer- 



56 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS 

ings. And the people hurry to feed them, for it 
is written that no priest must go hungry, be his 
numbers never so large. 

Often where we stopped for the nights there was 
music and dancing by young girls painted after the 
Chinese manner, but much better looking than the 
girls of Bangkok. Saw appeared to think so at 
all events, and by the time we reached Eatburi I 
grew to look upon him as an authority. And the 
girls danced as well as any I saw— the usual Far 
Eastern hand and shoulder action; the body-pos- 
turing of India and Polynesia is not seen in this 
part of Asia. To me the music, Burmese and Sia- 
mese—it is practically the same— is delightful be- 
cause of its entrancing melody, its scale of soft 
mellifluous notes, barbaric withal, you would 
believe impossible to metal cups. 

For the first days of our travel the banks of the 
klawng were so low that our boat frequently rode 
higher than the land adjoining; and at night the 
fireflies made the trees and brush immediately at 
hand electrical and beautiful. The jungle on the 
klawng bank seemed aflame with the pulsations 
of light, which come with instant brilliancy and 
died as suddenly. By day or by night, klawng 
travel unfolded a panorama of tropical foliage. 
Sometimes there were the high cocoanut trees, 
sometimes the betel-nut trees, which are not quite 




A NATIVE HOUSE ON THE KLAWNG TO RATBURI. 
Picturesquely but uncomfortably (mosquitoes) situated in a grove of cocoa betel-nut trees. 




THE HOUSE-BOAT WHICH SERVED ME WELL. 



OF SIAM 57 

so high as the cocoanut, and have a small leaf ; at 
times only the atap covered the bank in dense 
growth, impenetrable to the eye and fifteen to 
twenty feet in height; and always monkeys chat- 
tered in the trees at each side— monkeys of all sizes 
and of many different expressions of face. 

Finally we left the klawngs as we reached the 
river that was to take us direct to Ratburi, and 
here the banks attained to a height of three or four 
feet above the water, and the country became more 
open, with fairly largish trees— the handsome 
mango, the feather-duster-looking cocoanut, the 
tamarind, with its fine out-spreading limbs like 
the oak, and bamboo clumps, of which there were 
many of especially fine quality. Now on the 
broadening, open river, occasional pieces of culti- 
vation began to appear, and at intervals we passed 
rest houses, where Buddhist priests stop the night 
to replenish their exhausted larder from the 
slender resources of the near-by inhabitants. Here 
and there I noticed a muslin fish, or cloth lizard, 
floating from poles stuck in the bank, for good 
luck to the fishing boats; and frequently we en- 
countered set nets which we had more difficulty in 
avoiding than the busy craft of the klawngs. 
There is bad blood between the boatmen and the 
fishermen, and often Saw dug an oar into a net- 
fastening when he thought I could not detect him. 



58 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS 

At length we came to the town of Ratburi, where 
lived Phra Ram, chief of the Burma-Siam boun- 
dary line, who was to escort me to the Karens, 
among whom I hoped to engage guides for my pro- 
posed buffalo hunt. 

It was worth going to Siam, if only to meet Phra 
Ram. 



CHAPTER III 
PHRA RAM MAKES A PILGRIMAGE 

THREE things are dearer to the Siamese heart 
than life itself: (1) chewing the betel-nut; 
(2) " making merit "; (3) a pilgrimage to the an- 
cestral home. The first is at once his joy and 
solace, the second his simple method of mollifying 
Buddha through the building of prachadis, or mon- 
umental sacred spires, of greater or less preten- 
sion ; the third the Mecca of his active years, and 
the comforting reminiscence of old age. 

Now, although Phra Ram was the governmental 
chief of the line separating Burma from Siam, the 
king's representative to the Karens— jungle folk 
living on both sides the boundary— and an official 
before whom the common people prostrated them- 
selves, yet was he none the less Siamese. As to 
temperament he was distinctly native, but exotic 
in the clever ways and means devised to satisfy 
appetite and tradition simultaneously. He was 
an enlightened Oriental who acquiesced in the 
harmless and somewhat delightful superstitious 
humbuggery surrounding him — but lost never an 
eye to the main chance. In the vernacular of the 
street, he was " sawing wood " all the time. 

59 



60 PHEA EAM MAKES 

When, therefore, the king's minister ordered him 
to escort my hunting expedition to the Burma line, 
Phra Earn saw his opportunity for making that 
long deferred pilgrimage through the land of his 
fathers. 

The average Oriental is a ,bluff, inscrutable for 
only a brief period if you are a little wise in the 
ways of the Far East ; Phra Earn was a pastmaster 
in wearing the disguise. In fact, just to know the 
chief of the Siam-Burma line, was a liberal educa- 
tion in Far Eastern life philosophy ; not that he had 
travelled, or was beautiful to look upon, or learned 
in his Buddhist faith ; but he was so ingenuous in 
his ingenuity. You would never have thought he 
even had ancestors, much less suspect him of plan- 
ning a pilgrimage to their abiding place; on the 
contrary the preparations making for the journey 
would have convinced you that the jungle imme- 
diately on the outskirts of Eathburi overflowed 
with tiger, elephant and buffalo ; especially buffalo 
—that being the game I sought. And he could be 
so important and so busy and so bumptious over 
the trifles of life ! you could not persuade yourself 
that he had a thought above the knotting of his 
sarong, or the quality of his betel-nut. Eeally, he 
was deliciously artful; the most subtle gentleman 
I ever encountered. Not that I would infer dis- 
honesty—by no means; he was just Oriental. 



A PILGRIMAGE 61 

With all, tie was jolly, even-tempered, obliging, 
and a source of unceasing entertainment through- 
out the journey. He gave me an interesting trip, 
and an experience which subsequently proved in- 
valuable ; and should this fall under his eye in the 
Far East, I hope he will accept the felicitations of 
a pupil to the master. 

Despite a cross in his left eye, Phra Earn carried 
a certain air of distinction which he supported im- 
periously in intercourse with his people. He was 
about fifty years of age, with a generous stomach, 
an assortment of wives, and a pair of gray cloth, 
black buttoned spats he had got from a German 
on one of his occasional trips to Bangkok, and 
which he wore, over bare feet, only when in full 
dress. He was a loud and constant talker, with a 
voice that even Italian could not have mellowed, 
and which rasped the nerves of those within reach 
of its nasal, unmusical, Siamese twang. 

Seated tailor fashion on a square of cocoa mat- 
ting, with several attendants arranged in semi- 
circle behind him, Ram spent the greater part of 
the night of our arrival unfolding the extensive 
plans he had made for my hunting. Between dis- 
closures he consumed betel-nut ; and as it was my 
first intimacy with a betel-nut chewing gentleman, 
the performance interested me greatly. Prepara- 
tion of the morsel began by the approach of one of 



62 PHRA RAM MAKES 

three attendants, who came servilely forward, bent 
nearly double, and took his place at the right of 
the chief, where were displayed a bewildering as- 
sortment of silver boxes of exquisite workmanship. 
Having made his obeisance by bending first on 
knees and then to elbows as he pressed the floor 
with his forehead at the feet of Ram, the attendant 
settled cross-legged before the boxes. Taking a 
green leaf he smeared upon it a dab of lime paste 
tinted with the juice of the aromatic plant tur- 
meric. Into this he pressed several different seed- 
like things, one of which I recognized as cardamon, 
and over all liberally sprinkled pieces of a betel- 
nut which he had divided into eighths with an iron 
pair of cutters elaborately inlaid in gold on handles 
and blade. Then deftly rolling this cone-shape, 
he offered it on bended knee to Phra Ram, after 
diligently smiting the floor with his forehead a few 
times. 

During all this process Ram watched his servant 
carefully, at times crooning in pleasurable antici- 
pation, at times bursting into an impatient loud 
note of disapproval ; and when he had slowly and 
deliberately placed the tid-bit well back between 
his molars, the look of peace that came over his 
countenance would have put a babe to sleep in con- 
fidence. Silence would now continue while Ram 
chewed a few moments in undisturbed ecstasy; but 



A PILGBIMAGE 63 

when a bright red juice began to run from the 
corners of his mouth his tongue was loosed again. 
Occasionally, while he talked, an attendant at his 
left held up for contribution a silver cuspidor- 
looking affair ; and Earn was a liberal contributor. 
Betel-nut chewing is the national diversion of 
the Siamese. Every one, from high to low, is ad- 
dicted to the habit, and preparation of the quid for 
those too poor to own ingredients and boxes is, in 
every town, quite a business of itself; in the 
smallest settlements one sees peddlers squatting 
before their trays of little boxes holding lime and 
seeds and tobacco, and packages of syrah, or green 
betel leaves. The betel tree is among the most 
common in Siam, sending up a trunk sometimes 
full sixty feet, always, like the cocoanut, limbless 
except for its bush of a top where, again like the 
cocoa, the nuts grow in closely attached bunches, to 
harden and redden before gathered. Adding the 
cardamon-seed, or clove, to the preparation, is an 
extra of the well-to-do, and especially of the 
women ; the common habit among men of the coun- 
try being to add a pinch of tobacco after first rub- 
bing it over their gums. The bright red saliva 
from chewing is, in the town house, carefully de- 
posited in a handsome silver receptacle ; in the up- 
country house spaces between the open bamboo 
flooring obviate the necessity for such niceties. 



64 PHEA KAM MAKES 

But always on formal occasions, even in the jungle 
edge, the betel-nut chewer carries his box for the 
freely flowing juice that stains the teeth a deep 
red, which, among the better class, with care and 
attention becomes a highly polished black. And 
this is true even of Siam's most enlightened classes, 
whom contact with the outside world appears not 
to win from the betel-nut and discolored teeth. In 
Bangkok I talked with one of royal blood and his 
wife, both of whom had lived several years in 
England, yet the teeth of each were black as ebony, 
and the woman frankly expressed her disgust at 
the white teeth of foreigners. Dogs and other four 
footed animals she declared have white teeth. 
Blessed is contentment ! 

The betel-nut boxes are to the Siamese what 
toilet articles are to the Occidental— a necessity 
made ornamental ; for just as one of us may take 
pride in the pattern and workmanship of the 
dressing table equipment, so the Siamese search for 
the unusual in design and quality, and possess with 
frank pleasure the series of little boxes which may 
range from plain brass to handsomely carved sil- 
ver, or even to gold. And you can learn the Sia- 
mese social scale by a study of these boxes. As the 
Mexican will unhesitatingly put his last dollar into 
a wondrously and valuably ornamented bridle or 
saddle, or hat, so the betel-nut boxes of the Sia- 



A PILGRIMAGE 65 

mese may represent the sum total of his worldly 
wealth. Frequently I saw a native who kept body 
and soul together with difficulty on the fish that he 
caught and the fruit that he plucked, bring forth 
with much pride a betel-nut set which represented 
money enough to maintain him in luxury and in 
idleness for a year. I am sure the Siamese would 
cling to the betel-nut if he had to choose between it 
and food. In fact, such incidents came under my 
personal observation. Often I stopped at a native 
house where, although the larder was empty, they 
still had betel-nut to chew, and to offer to the trav- 
eller; for the betel-nut is the token of hospitality 
here as the cup of tea is in the Far North. 

During the few days following my arrival Phra 
Ram was the busiest man you ever beheld getting 
his men and carts together ; and, as each new prob- 
lem necessitated a period of consultation— and 
betel-nut chewing— and as the latter periods were 
prolonged by the constant arrival of new coun- 
sellors, the decision of problems rated as about one 
to the half day. Meanwhile I made acquaintance 
with Ratburi, and took little journeys up and down 
the river. Ratburi was soon explored without re- 
sults for, despite its local halo as the one time resi- 
dence of the king, it is none the less an unkempt, 
dirty, little town, full of Chinese shops and filthy, 
mangy dogs that skulk at your heels or peer out 

5 



66 PHRA EAM MAKES 

f earsomely from behind house corners as you pass : 
the king showed excellent taste indeed in moving 
elsewhere. But the river journeys were produc- 
tive. Once I came up with a picturesque group 
of yellow-robed priests resting in a mosquito net- 
ting camp on their pilgrimage to the far-famed 
Wat Prabat, where the faithful may view 
Buddha's sacred footprint. Another time I 
sought refuge in one of the rest houses, which, at 
intervals of about a day's journey, are scattered 
along well defined routes for the free use of pil- 
grims to the many wats around Bangkok, and 
other travellers less religiously inclined. These 
houses, which are built at the expense of the king 
or the Government or of some private individual 
as a merit-making enterprise, consist of a raised 
floor covered by a roof supported at its four cor- 
ners by plain teak wood posts and open on all four 
sides. As the average journeying priest or Sia- 
mese wayfarer is none too clean, it is well, if you 
use the rest house, to be provided with a brand of 
insect destroyer of unfailing killing power. If 
you are thus well armed, you may have a piece of 
the wooden floor to yourself, and pick up a fruit 
and fish breakfast from the peddlers who make 
the rest house a first call on their early route. 

The day of our departure was heralded far and 
wide and all Eatburi, with its sisters, cousins and 



A PILGEIMAGE 67 

male relatives gathered to behold our expedition 
set forth. And no doubt, with Phra Earn afoot 
leading the procession, closely attended by his 
group of body servants, we were a sight for the 
gallery, as we wound our way through the town; 
for it must not be supposed that the chief missed 
such an opportunity of impressing the natives. 

We came out of the town at the end of the main 
street, and under the king's deserted palace high 
on the hill we paused while I photographed the 
outfit. Then for the couple of days it required to 
reach the jungle edge country, our road wound 
through padi fields where water stood one or two 
feet deep. Of our eleven carts, three were devoted 
to Phra Eam's personal luggage, one to a wife of 
his, and the remainder carried provisions and the 
personal luggage of my interpreter, Nai Kawn, 
and myself. The carts were truly primitive, with 
long, narrow, high body (about a foot and a half 
wide, by two feet high and six feet long) and a 
wheel hub full two feet deep. The bullocks were 
small, having withers raised, like all Asiatic 
draught cattle, into a well developed hump, and 
of no great strength; quite appropriate indeed to 
the cart they hauled. Attached to the nose of each 
was a small rope on which their drivers laid hold 
as occasion needed ; but that was not often, for the 
temperament of the cattle and of the natives 



68 PHRA RAM MAKES 

seemed fittingly harmonious, and mostly com- 
mands were given by word of mouth. There were 
two drivers to every yoke and they by turn talked 
almost continuously to the bullocks. Now they 
would beseech faster gait by such earnest, direct 
appeal, as " your father left word with me that 
you were to go on this journey "; again they would 
threaten to expose the sluggard to the cow mother 
and all the bullocks of Ratburi district ; and often 
there came a singsong of entreaty in a peculiar, 
whining tone which even Nai Kawn could not in- 
terpret. Rarely did a driver lose patience and 
upbraid his cattle ; and I do not recall an instance 
of beating. But nothing quickened their steps. 

On the third day we came into a more or less 
open section lying between the lowland and the 
jungle edge, and then for ten days journeyed in 
the most attractive country I saw at any time. 
Here I had the only pleasing, outdoor camp life 
of my Far Eastern experience. The country was 
wooded, but neither densely, except in patches, nor 
with large trees. Intervals were filled with bam- 
boo clumps and bushes of various kinds— most of 
the latter more beautiful to view than to touch. 
And there was scarcely an hour when we were out 
of the sound of cooing doves. I never saw so many 
doves in my life, and my reputation as a mighty 
hunter suffered seriously with my party, because 



A PILGRIMAGE 69 

I would not shoot into the large and close coveys 
upon which we were repeatedly coming. There 
were quantities, also, of small, brilliantly plumaged 
paroquets, which zigzagged around us as rapidly 
as swallows. Also there were vultures, and an 
ugly appearing kind of hawk. It was entirely de- 
lightful to tramp along with scent of the fragrant, 
pulsing earth and of the moist forest ascending 
to your nostrils, while bird voices sounded high 
and low. Everywhere were patent evidences of 
refreshment, and all nature united in rejoicing and 
in thanksgiving for the rain that had quenched 
its thirst. Of birds there were many and strange ; 
birds with sombre plumage and voices melodious 
as our thrush or meadow lark; birds of beau- 
tiful plumage and no voice, like one little canary 
kind of creature with wondrous golden-red feath- 
ers. Daily I listened to the curiously fascinating, 
liquid tones of the poot-poot bird, with its nat- 
ural and flat notes sounded simultaneously, for , 
all the world like a xylophone. Another bird 
trilled long on a single high note, with lowering 
and ascending cadence. And perhaps most fre- 
quent and certainly most familiar of all was the 
caw of the crow. A large woodpecker, black gray 
and golden nearly overcame my scruples against 
shooting out of mere desire for possession, so at- 
tractive was it ; but there was another, long-legged 



70 PHRA RAM MAKES 

and about the size of the dove, against which mur- 
derous thoughts ever arose on sight. It had a 
brown body and wings spotted with black, black 
and white striped head, with a white ring about 
its neck, red bill and red eyebrows. 'Twas not its 
appearance that disturbed, but its voice and its 
habit. In the jungle whenever we came upon 
fresh game tracks, we were almost sure imme- 
diately after to hear this bird set up its distracting, 
incessant cry. Like the teru tero of South Amer- 
ica it is commonly called the sentinel of the jungle ; 
and an alert sentinel it is that sounds its warning 
note on the slightest suggestion of man's approach. 
Luckily it does not penetrate deep into the jungle. 
Occasionally we came upon a yellow morning- 
glory-shaped flower with black centre; and now 
and then in open grassy spots I nearly stepped on 
a tiny, blue and white thing growing close to the 
ground and resembling the forget-me-not. Imme- 
diately about us at all times, butterflies of exquisite 
and varied coloring fluttered irregularly, uncer- 
tainly, everywhere. Strangely, in this land of 
tropical extravagance as to foliage, birds and but- 
terflies, there should be no handsome varieties of 
wild grass. Variety in bushes, however, is not 
lacking in Siam; they grow in all sizes and shapes, 
bearing every kind of thorns, differing in pattern 
perhaps, but all fashioned to hold whatever has 



A PILGRIMAGE 71 

been secured. There are straight and curved 
thorns of different lengths; some curve forward, 
some curve back; and one of the back-curving 
class has a barb-like addition somewhat like a fish 
hook. When this double-thorned, unholy thought 
breeder fastens upon you, do not try to yank your- 
self free, but stop, return smilingly with the limb 
to the parent bush and there sit you down with a 
contrite heart and a patient hand to untiringly fol- 
low the back track of the tenacious thorn. And 
keep your eye open lest it further entrap you. 
Once as I sat thus engaged— and thinking things- 
other barbed thorned branches reached out while I 
worked in happy industry, and embraced me by 
the shoulders, at the collar, at the skirt of my coat, 
in the pockets, so that when I finally arose I 
stood in my shirt sleeves. The largest tree we saw, 
sometimes attained to a diameter of two feet, 
though half that was usually its average; always 
its light gray trunk was smooth and bore no 
branches until at its very top, which stood against 
the early morning sky grotesquely. 

Mostly the jungle edge is noiseless. Just at the 
first light of day when the stars are beginning to 
fade and the darkness is losing some of its density, 
birds begin to twitter: one with a voice like the 
meadow lark ; one, a cross between a bobolink and 
a canary; another, with a single note, first slow 



72 PHRA RAM MAKES 

and at deliberate intervals, gradually increasing 
in volume and rapidity ; one chirping like a robin ; 
a second like a lost chick; a third like a catbird. 
Then a burst of melody as day breaks, and the gray 
sky grows lighter and lighter until it is blue. 
From out of the southeast, where the sun is soon 
to shed his rays, a rosier hue shows ; and the rakish 
tree tops, and palms and festooning canes lighted 
by a gray-blue sky make an early morning picture 
of brilliant beauty. As the sun rises, bird notes 
grow fewer and when the heat of the day has fully 
developed, the quiet of the grave again settles upon 
the country; a quiet that reigns always in the in- 
terior of the dense jungle, where one does not see 
the sun or hear a single bird note. 

At night, as dusk closes upon the jungle edge 
there comes the catlike, distressful call of the pea- 
cock, as it speeds swiftly to its roosting place in 
the very top of the highest tree it can find. 

Through the more or less open country ap- 
proaching the jungle edge, the heat increased 
during the day until it became close and sultry, 
though seldom the thermometer registered above 
94° (and this was December) but the nights were 
comfortably cool and insect life comparatively less 
disturbing. Though mosquitoes were plentiful 
and persistent, of the small kind requiring a fine 
mesh of netting, yet the real insect pest was red 



A PILGRIMAGE 73 

ants that took hold of one with no tentative grip 
and held on. But as to attendants, it was the most 
luxurious camping that ever I had, for, with our 
thirty men, there was a servant if you did but raise 
your hand. Phra Earn had been directed by the 
king's minister to make this journey in fitting style 
—at my expense — and he was not leaving anything 
undone to add to my comfort or to increase the 
importance of his pilgrimage. Usually we started 
at daylight and pursued our lumbering way, at 
the rate of about two and one-half miles the hour 
until sundown, with a two-hour stop during the 
fierce heat of midday for the benefit of the bullocks, 
which were not up to much and were being pretty 
well worked by the heavy roads. The night camp, 
made after much loud direction on the part of 
Ram and equally much misdirected energy on the 
part of the natives, was always picturesquely 
located in a clearing in the jungle ; and while the 
men ate, the bullocks wandered in and out and 
around and over like so many dogs, the natives occa- 
sionally chiding them for too abrupt friendliness. 
Occasionally a bullock made his way to where we 
pitched our tent just outside the circle of carts; 
but invariably fled discomfited by the contempt 
with which my servant reminded it of being " but 
a slave that had tried to play the gentleman." 
Bullocks never stray far from camp, however. At 



74 PHRA RAM MAKES 

dark they are driven in to form scattering groups 
within the circle of carts. Each driver ties his 
own cattle around him and builds a little fire, 
which every now and again during the night he 
awakes with a start to replenish as the bullock 
plunges on the tie rope in an agony of timorous 
fancy, suspecting every noise in the surrounding 
jungle to be a prey-seeking tiger. If wood is 
scarce, a lantern is kept lighted. The bullocks are 
quite as fearful of the night jungle as the Siamese 
themselves; which is saying much —for the low 
caste are cowardly, beyond any people I ever fell 
among. Poor, simple souls, they are so supersti- 
tious that supplication and merit making occupy 
most of their waking hours. 

A bedraggled young Siamese who came ex- 
hausted into our camp one night, reported having 
seen the wet tracks of a tiger and of spending his 
night building a merit making shrine in appeal to 
his mightiness " the animal " that he be allowed 
to pass safely to the camp of Phra Ram for whom 
he carried a letter announcing the illness of his 
head wife ; news which Ram and his accompanying 
wife discussed with obvious interest. Wherever 
natives journey these crude little altars are erected. 
Sometimes the supplicant offers in tribute articles 
of comparative value, such as their bamboo orna- 
ments, or a piece of the cloth of which a turban- 



A PILGRIMAGE 75 

like head covering is fashioned; sometimes it may 
be only a handful of leaves gathered nearby ; some- 
times fruit. I never saw betel-nut offered. The 
low caste Siamese of the jungle have few wants, 
and live like animals, eating chiefly wild fruits and 
rice, which they raise in small, cleared spots, 
wherever they happen to settle temporarily. Like 
the Karens, the jungle people of Burma, they are 
always on the move, and in common with all mixed- 
caste Siamese are petty thieves of an incurable 
propensity. Yet they are obedient, servile to an 
unpleasant degree from the Westerner's view- 
point. They manufacture nothing save crudest 
domestic household necessities and personal orna- 
ments from bamboo. Clothes are of slight conse- 
quence. On the jungle edge they go uncovered, 
men and women, above the waist, the panung 
reaching within four inches of the knee ; but deep 
in the jungle they are practically naked. Their 
single implement is a long-bladed, butcher-like 
knife used as path maker, as weapon (together 
with a wood spear) , and industrially, in fashioning 
out of the ubiquitous bamboo their ornaments, 
their buckets, their rope, their string, their houses 
and the food receptacles which take the place of 
pots and pans and plates. Nearly all of the jungle 
folk on both sides the Siam-Burma line tattoo the 
thigh, sometimes from knee to hip, more often 



76 PHRA EAM MAKES 

from the knee to only six inches above. The de- 
sign may be a turtle, or the much dreaded tiger 
done elaborately, but the one most frequently 
seen, and the simplest, is a sort of a lace or 
fringe pattern in the middle of the thigh, or just 
below the knee, like a garter. The women do 
not tattoo, believing in beauty unadorned ; heaven 
knows they need adornment as my photograph of 
an average looking jungle lady will bear me 
witness. 

Before we had travelled many days together my 
doubts concerning the efficiency of the men of our 
expedition as hunters, became convictions. When 
we had passed through the comparatively open, 
park-like country and got well into the jungle, the 
attractive, natural settings and the pleasing bird 
notes were replaced by dense timber and bush 
growths, which shut out the sun, and an appalling 
silence that was broken only by the sounds we our- 
selves made in pushing through the forest which 
so hedged us in that a clear view of fifty yards was 
unusual. For a few days after reaching the jungle 
proper we occasionally heard the choking, startling 
cry of a big, blackish, gray ape— but even that 
lone disturber of the solitude soon ceased his un- 
even efforts. We were now in what Phra Ram 
was pleased to term the hunting country, and I 
have forgotten just how many he declared my bag 



A PILGRIMAGE 77 

should be of buffalo (the animal I particularly- 
sought), of gnuadang (the wild red ox) and of 
kating (the local name for the Indian gaur and 
the Malayan seladang) . 

At least the chief appeared to have full confi- 
dence in his assurances for he hunted diligently. 
In the open country he went forth regularly with 
sundown to jack rabbits, while in the jungle he 
sat up many a night on a platform over a tied-up 
bullock in the hope of getting a shot at tiger. To 
see— and to hear— Ram and his servant escort de- 
parting for and returning from these platforms 
was perhaps the most impressive event of the pil- 
grimage. He always set out for the platform 
before dark and returned at daybreak. Long 
after he passed out of sight as he went, and long 
before we could see him on the return, we would 
hear his strident voice reaching up out of the wil- 
derness about us, and the smashing and slashing 
of brush as his servants cleared his way— and inci- 
dentally announced his approach to all the jungle 
four-footed folk in the province. In the morning, 
as the chief emerged from the jungle with trailing 
servants, bearing his gun, hat, tea-making set, cig- 
arettes, knives, slippers, wraps, lantern, he would 
make direct for my tent, where he saluted and then 
recounted to Nai Kawn in voice so loud as to be 
distinguishable at the farthest corner of our camp 



78 PHRA EAM MAKES 

every thought he had owned and every sound he 
had heard since the previous afternoon. He 
always told his experience with great gusto and 
much good humor, while the servants squatted 
around him nodding energetic affirmation of the 
thrilling recital ; for there was sure to be something 
thrilling. 

Ram's servants were a picture in themselves. 
One aged chap carried over his shoulder a pole 
with native bamboo-made bird cage inclosing 
Ram's pet dove, swinging from one end, while at 
the other hung a Chinese paper umbrella, which 
was held over Ram's head when he ventured from 
under his covered cart during the strong noon heat. 
A second servant carried in his arms a rooster 
which he invariably tethered by a short string to 
the first convenient bush whenever a halt was 
made. Why Ram included this rooster in his ret- 
inue I never could learn, but it stayed with us the 
entire trip to enliven the monotonous silence of the 
early jungle morning by lusty crowing. A third 
servant carried Ram's armory of kris and gun. A 
fourth and fifth shared his personal luggage. A 
sixth and seventh divided the betel-nut chewing 
paraphernalia. The eighth, Si, really came very 
near to eclipsing the glory of Ram himself ; not in 
raiment, however, for of that there was not enough 
to mention. Si wore long hair, an unceasing smile 



A PILGRIMAGE 79 

and a G-string, and enjoyed wide distinction 
among his fellows as being the man who had 
erected the king's tent throughout the latter 's up- 
country pilgrimage. The honor appeared to have 
put him in perpetual good humor with himself 
and the world. He was always laughing or cut- 
ting some kind of monkey shine, and in fact was 
the cap and bells of the expedition. He seemed to 
prefer my camp-fire to that of his own, and he and 
our busy little Chinese cook, who never worked 
without a fan in one hand, which he alternately 
devoted to himself and to the fire, were constantly 
falling foul of one another, for Si was ever playing 
practical pranks on the Chinaman. The gem of Si's 
earthly possessions was a short, white jacket, which 
he informed us had been given him by the king 
and which as his sole clothing he wore on his body 
only on very special occasions. At all other times 
he wore the jacket on his head fashioned into a 
kind of turban. One day, as he tormented the 
Chinese cook, the latter grabbed the coat-turban 
and cut off a half of one of its sleeves before Si 
could come to the rescue. And that was the end of 
Si's jollity; for the remainder of the trip he was 
content to follow demurely last of the train of 
Barn's personal followers. 

The chief was not permitting this pilgrimage to 
ancestral lands to move unheralded, and probably 



80 PHRA RAM MAKES 

there was not a man, woman or child on the hither 
side the Burma line who had not heard of our 
proposed invasion before we left Eatburi. At 
every camp they came flocking to swell the expedi- 
tion and to reduce our provisions, until the thirty 
men of our original party had increased to about 
seventy-five. Some of these had guns, and many 
of them professed to be hunters, so on my sugges- 
tion, Phra Ram sent a dozen or two or three of 
them scouring the country for tracks. Usually 
they reported either none or old ones. Sometimes 
they brought tales of fresh tracks and excellent 
prospects. As a result of these hopeful stories I 
made a number of side hunting excursions of sev- 
eral hard days' duration after buffalo and kating; 
but without luck, for though the tracks at times 
were rather fresh and success seemed imminent, 
yet after eight or ten hours' tramping the Siamese 
usually decided the game had passed into another 
section and was too far to reach for " that day." 
The day never seemed long enough for us to reach 
game. There was plenty of the little muntjac deer, 
with its reddish coat, white marked breast and 
rump and dog-like tenor bark. The natives call this 
deer by blowing a leaf, making a bleating noise 
somewhat like that caused by blowing on a blade 
of grass between the hands. But it is a skulker 
and not so easy to kill, though many opportunities 



A PILGRIMAGE 81 

offered, of which I did not avail myself, having 
already one head as a trophy. Several times I saw 
a red-necked jungle fowl, about the size of a small 
hen, and counted myself very lucky in the sight, 
for it is shy; and three times a splendid shot 
offered at the dark brown Far Eastern sambar 
deer, which is about the size of our Virginia deer, 
and carries two to four upstanding, branchless 
spikes varying from eight to twelve inches in 
length. After several of these excursions the Sia- 
mese showed a disinclination for further jungle 
searching, complaining to Nai Kawn that I walked 
too long and too far, but a little tea, judiciously 
doled out reawakened their interest and the daily 
hunting trips continued. 

Within two weeks I had seen and had oppor- 
tunity to shoot about everything in the jungle, in- 
cluding elephant, except the buffalo which was the 
only quarry I wanted, but as we approached the 
Burmese border we developed into an itinerant 
police court with calendar so full and interesting 
that no Siamese could be induced to forego any of 
its sessions. Apparently the jungle folk had not 
for some time before been given the chance of tell- 
ing their tales of woe. And they were mostly do- 
mestic tales, unsavory and shamelessly personal 
and frankly recited. Ram always held court at 
noon in the most open spot to be found in the 

6 



82 PHRA EAM MAKES 

jungle where we might be, and here under the 
shade of a tree with his servants on either hand, he 
would sit in judgment upon the cases brought for 
his consideration. Squatting in humble attitude, 
in the immediate foreground, were the plaintiff 
and defendant, and behind them in a semi-circle, 
reaching back as far as the clear spot would per- 
mit, squatted the entire expedition and the visiting 
spectators. Whether it was a man seeking to cast 
off one of his wives who had ceased to delight him, 
or a woman wishing freedom from a cruel hus- 
band, or a case of theft, the chief read the law 
without fear of contradiction, and to the apparent 
satisfaction of all concerned. And when court 
adjourned Ram's servants gathered up the pres- 
ents laid before " his honor " in open evidence 
that the jungle folk knew it wise to humor any 
man on a pilgrimage to the home of his ancestors, 
especially when that man happened to be a per- 
sonage so intimately connected with their state as 
Phra Ram, chief of the border line, and possessor 
of many wives. Always these proceedings were 
followed by a love feast in which curry and rice 
and fowl served to bring harmony even to the 
recent disputants. In time I came to share local 
homage, because from having given quinine and 
cathartic pills to some of the men of our party it 
got noised about that I was a medical wizard. At 



A PILGRIMAGE 83 

every camp I became the object of adoration and 
petition by individuals, families and groups, ailing 
from one thing or another, who approached me on 
bended knee, begging drugs. At times I was prac- 
tically mobbed. It mattered not what the ailment, 
or whether it was fancied or real ; they had heard 
of my medicine and would not be denied. In the 
thought of ridding myself of their embarrassing 
entreaties, I one day gave out some pills— the 
bitterest things ever compounded; but the " pa- 
tients,'' to my utter consternation, chewed them 
greedily. The more distasteful the stuff, in fact, 
the more convinced they seemed to be of its 
medicinal properties. In a foolish moment at one 
camp, I painted some grotesque figures in iodine 
on a woman's swollen breast which had been 
offered for treatment ; and within three days every 
similarly affected woman dogged my footsteps 
until I had to appeal to the chief for deliverance 
from their importunities. Citronelle, too, which 
I had brought in the delusion of its sparing me 
from mosquitoes, proved a great favorite with the 
gentle sex. 

Personally, I used very little medicine. Al- 
though advised by doctors in town to take five 
grains of quinine daily, it seemed to me that such 
a course would get my system so accustomed to the 
drug that it would not respond when there was 



84 PHEA EAM MAKES 

really need to dose. Days did come when I needed 
it pretty badly, yet never so badly that I could not 
travel, and on such occasions I took from fifteen 
to twenty-five grains to knock out the fever I could 
feel coming on. And the knockout generally fol- 
lowed, for though I got into some notoriously un- 
healthful country here and elsewhere in the Far 
East, I escaped serious attacks. I always took the 
precaution to first boil water before drinking it, 
and, in the most noxious parts of the swampy 
jungle where we had many times to camp, to 
keep a fire going all night with the smoke blow- 
ing across me; yet I did not wholly escape. 
Another plan I pursued and which I believe in a 
large measure answered for my good health, was 
to have my servant bring me at daylight a full, 
large cup of strong, milkless, sugarless coffee, 
which I drank to fortify my stomach against the 
early morning miasma. It may have been fancy, 
but it served me well. Dysentery, which may run 
into fatal cholera, is the most dreaded of lurking- 
jungle dangers, but though attacked several times 
chlorodyne safeguarded me promptly and effec- 
tually. 

Earn continued to hold court day after day and 
to assure me between sittings of my getting the 
buffalo I sought ; but by this time I knew that until 
the chief of the Burmese line had completed his 




SOME OF MY HUNTERS. 
Who assumed the clothing of civilization in an effort to protect their bodies against the briars. 




CAMPING ON THE EDGE OF THE JUNGLE, SIAM. 



A PILGRIMAGE 85 

pilgrimage and reached the Karens on the border 
I was not likely to get much game. The Karens 
I had heard were accustomed to hunting and were 
experienced in the jungle, whereas the Siamese we 
had, and were rapidly acquiring, knew nothing of 
the jungle beyond the beaten paths or the sections 
immediately near their settlements. So I made a 
virtue of necessity and became reconciled, abiding 
the time we should reach the Karens. Meanwhile, 
during the closing days of the court's circuit, the 
best sport I had was with peacock, which, as I 
learned, is a mighty difficult bird to get. I had fan- 
cied it easy until I tried. Seldom do you see the bird 
during the day, for it is wary and very rarely takes 
to wing, relying upon its hearing and legs ; and in 
confidence as it well may, for it runs swiftly where 
you make way slowly and with much labor. There- 
fore you listen for the catlike call with which the 
cock invariably announces his flight to the roosting 
tree at dusk. He is too high, as he soars swiftly, to 
reach on wing with a shot gun, even if you see him 
in flight, and too indistinct a mark in the gathering 
darkness for the rifle; so you watch where he 
alights, if you can, or you guess it if you have not 
seen, as most likely you have not, and then you 
quietly camp under that tree until dawn. The 
chances are that you are under the wrong tree, 
and that while you are trying to locate the bird in 



86 A PILGRIMAGE 

the morning, he will suddenly spring from a 
nearby treetop and go away so rapidly that you 
have only time to glimpse his long, trailing tail. 
He must be located with certainty, for with the 
very first break of day he leaves his roost with a 
rush. Many an unrewarded, long night I spent 
before being favored. 

It was with great relief that I sighted the Karen 
settlement and felt Phra Ram's pilgrimage to be 
finally at an end ; yet the trip had provided me with 
needed experience and, now qualified to distin- 
guish the jungle man from the town loafer, I set 
about engaging men for my buffalo hunt on the 
Burmese border. 



CHAPTER IV 
HUNTING WITH THE KARENS. 

WHEN we left the Karen village, we left 
behind also the assortment of Siamese 
whom we had been collecting all along the route 
of Phra Ram's pilgrimage, though it required 
some strategy to get clear of them, for they were 
unwilling to allow so well-provisioned an outfit to 
escape. But the Karens we gathered were little 
better than the Siamese we abandoned; it came 
near to being' a case of jumping out of the frying- 
pan into the fire. I had no difficulty whatever in 
securing Karens to join our expedition; but alas, 
the hope, which had buoyed me during the pil- 
grimage, of getting efficient men among these peo- 
ple, was rudely shattered. Real hunters, men who 
knew the jungle and the wilderness folk— were 
few and far between. In fact there was not a man 
of my party, nor could I find one, who had ever 
seen a buffalo, the game I particularly sought. 
One chap was presented with much flourish as 
being the son of a man who at one time had made 
his way into the interior of Burma and killed 
buffalo and other game ; but the son, though he had 
hunted the wild red cattle a great deal, had never 

87 



88 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 

killed buffalo. On the Burma side the Karens are 
more at home in the jungle, but those of the border 
line are more like the Siamese, who never ven- 
ture into jungle not known to some of their people. 
The little village where I picked up my men was 
the temporary abode of a small tribe, with its 
about one dozen houses standing on bamboo poles 
eight feet above the ground, and straggling along 
a small stream for several miles. Here they had 
made a clearing and were cultivating rice which, 
together with a kind of pumpkin (gourd), wild- 
growing bananas, some jungle vegetables, and 
chickens constitute their food. The houses were 
placed to command the rice fields, over which con- 
stant guard is maintained by a system of scare- 
crows and crudely constructed noise-making im- 
plements. For example : running from the house 
to the padi fields, sometimes as much as one hun- 
dred yards away, were lines of bamboo poles every 
one with a hole in its top. Through these holes 
a native-made rope was attached at the padi field 
end to a very large, thoroughly dried, hollow 
bamboo placed upon another of the same kind at 
an angle of forty-five degrees. Always someone 
is on watch at the house end of this line. When 
birds or animals steal upon the padi field, the rope 
is pulled and let go quickly and repeatedly, which 
alternately lifts and drops one hollow bamboo upon 



HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 89 

the other, making a booming yon can hear for a 
good mile in the jungle. And all this clearing and 
bnilding is repeated annually, for the Karens are 
a nomadic people, so constantly changing their 
abodes that the same piece of ground is not often 
planted a second time. If during the planting or 
the ripening of the crop someone should fall ill 
of smallpox, the afflicted, the house and the rice 
fields are immediately deserted, because the Karens 
are deadly afraid of it and fly for their lives on 
its appearance, setting up sharp sticks on all roads 
leading to the settlement to intercept the demon 
of disease. 

Like the Siamese, the Karen women are not good 
to look upon, and do not improve their appearance 
any by the style of ornaments they affect. When 
very young their ears are pierced to admit a small, 
round stick which is gradually increased in diam- 
eter, until by the time the little girls have become 
women their ears easily accommodate a two-inch 
disc of blackened bamboo. This stretches the ears 
hideously, as may be imagined; and when the orna- 
ment is laid aside temporarily!— well— picture the 
thin strips of pendant ear lobe! As a rule the 
Karen women wear their hair long, but, like the 
Siamese, some cut it short, and others again keep 
it cropped close, except on top of the head, where 
it is allowed to grow to its natural length, which 



90 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 

does not add to their by-no-means over abundance 
of good looks. Sometimes the unmarried woman 
wears a breast cloth, but for the most part men 
and women wear a loin girdle, and sometimes even 
that is set aside in hot weather. 

To appreciate thoroughly the Japanese women 
one should begin the Far Eastern trip at the Malay 
Peninsula, journeying thence through Siam, 
Anam, Cambodia and China— though I confess to 
preferring a good looking Chinese girl to the 
alleged Japanese beauty. 

Bracelets and necklaces of bamboo are the other 
usual ornaments, except when they can afford a 
narrow neckband of silver which protects the 
wearer, so it is believed, against many evils that 
lurk along life's wayside, even in the jungle. The 
men also wear this neckband, and bamboo an inch 
in diameter and about four inches long stuck 
through their ear lobes. Some of the boys are 
rather good looking. They wear their hair in a 
knot, like a horn— on the forehead, or at one side 
or the other of the head, or on top ; and usually a 
turban crowns the topknot. All in all, the Karens 
differ not a great deal from the Siamese in phys- 
iognomy, but the people in this section of the Far 
East shade into one another rather easily. 

Whatever the Karens know of hunting is ac- 
quired from sitting on platforms in the dry season 



HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 91 

watching waterholes for the drinking beasts; and 
they do not much of this for they are not a meat- 
eating people. 

In a word, the new men engaged were of mighty 
little service to me except as burden bearers ; and 
so far as increasing the efficiency of my party, I 
was no better off after my visit to the Karen village 
than before. My immediate " hunting " force 
continued unchanged, and consisted of the Sia- 
mese, Thee, Nuam and Wan, who had been secured 
by Phra Ram as the best three in all the country. 
And that was true enough, for although a long 
ways from being good hunters, they were really 
about the only natives I met in Siam who pre- 
tended to have any jungle hunting experience; 
and, except for Wan, even their knowledge went 
no farther than chance gossip. Thee's chief occu- 
pation was courting the ladies of the jungle and of 
the villages; the moment we crossed the trail of 
the eternal feminine Thee was lost to our party. I 
always hoped he was more capable, not to say suc- 
cessful, in this field than he was in the one where 
I paid for his experience. All three carried muz- 
zle-loading guns which had been presented to them 
at Ratburi by the chief; but only Wan possessed 
any markmanship whatever. Phra Ram had in 
fact laid in a stock of such guns for distribution 
to the distinguished among the jungle stragglers 



92 HUNTING WITH THE KAEENS 

whom we met on the pilgrimage, and they were 
appropriated with frank pleasure, and carried 
with much ostentation. But Earn got no thanks 
from me for his generosity. The natives fired at 
every living thing which crossed our path, making 
such a f usilade that hunting was simply out of the 
question. When I took Earn to task he solemnly 
assured me that the men would not dare venture 
into the jungle without the guns ; and when I told 
him I could get along better without both men and 
guns he protested that the king would cut off his 
head if he allowed the " distinguished foreign 
hunter," who had been intrusted to his care, to ven- 
ture unprotected into the jungle. So I proceeded 
to take the law into my own hands by getting pos- 
session of the small supply of caps and deliberately 
exploding every one of then on Wan's gun, which 
I borrowed for the purpose. Mutiny followed, 
but none of the gun owners left I am sorry to 
say— we had too much good grub. While we 
stopped at the Karen village reports innumerable 
came to us of game, especially of elephants, of 
which the jungles were said to be full, as indeed 
it seemed after we got started. Leaving the 
little village at daybreak, we had not walked more 
than a couple of hours before we found broad, 
defined tracks, and later a wallowing pool. 
Whether or not you are hunting elephant, it is a 



HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 93 

joy to come upon their tracks, for they make a 
path easily traversed through jungle of clinging 
vine and thorn bushes, through which ordinarily 
you could make way laboriously only by constant 
use of the knife. Though I was not hunting 
elephant, the ready-made pathway was quite as 
acceptable. 

After a while we came upon buffalo and red 
cattle tracks in a thickly wooded country of small 
trees, where the coarse grass grew higher than 
one's head. Between these stretches were occa- 
sional swamps without timber, covered with the 
lalang common to all Malaya— and as wet. Not 
a stitch remained dry after going through one of 
these places. Picking up the buffalo tracks, for 
they alone interested me, we followed them unin- 
terruptedly all that first day, coming again to mud- 
holes in which the roiled water showed plainly 
their recent passing. Later we got into denser 
jungle and found fresher tracks. It seemed as 
though we must at least get sight of the game; 
but after eight hours' steady going Thee decided 
we could not reach it that day. As I have said, 
Thee was the ladies' man, yet Phra Ram had made 
him leader of the hunters. I understood later that 
his people had certain agricultural interests near 
Ratburi which gave him importance in the eyes 
of a chief interested in the local rivel toll. 



94 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 

The experience of the first day was the expe- 
rience of the following two weeks, during which 
we travelled over the country and across its fre- 
quent streams, making our way towards one par- 
ticular section, which all united in declaring was 
sure to yield us buffalo if we were not earlier suc- 
cessful. There was scarcely a day in those two 
weeks that we did not cross elephant tracks, and 
the tracks of deer, and the Siamese variety of the 
guar ; several times I had the luck to sight the deer 
itself. 

In the Far East is an interesting and exclusive 
Oriental group of deer (Rusine), which includes 
the sambar of India, Burma and Siam, with its 
numerous Malayan varieties; and several closely 
allied similar forms through Malaya and the Phil- 
ippine Islands. Most important but least nu- 
merous is Schomburger's deer (Cervus schom- 
burgki), standing about four feet at the shoulder, 
and carrying a good-sized head, entirely unique in 
the whole world of deer for its many-pointed ant- 
lers. This was the only deer at which I should 
have risked a shot while in the buffalo section ; but, 
unhappily, I never saw one, as it is very scarce 
except in the far northern parts of Siam, and not 
plentiful even there. In fact, good heads are rare. 

Also in Siam is the little barking (Cervulus 
muntjac) or ribfaced deer, about twenty inches 




HE FAR EASTERN DEER 



Hog deer of Indian plains, Cervus porciniis. 

Ranges through Burma. z{ ft. at shoulder. 
Sambar, common, Cervus unicolor. This is more 

like the Indian type. 4 to 5 ft. at shoulder. 
Ribbed faced deer, barking deer, Cervulns munt- 

jac. 20 to 22 in. high. 



4. Celebes, Cervus moluccensis. 3 ft. high. 

5. Northern Siam, Cervus Schomburgki. 3 ft. 5 in. 

high. 

6. Thameng, Cervus eldi. Burma. 



HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 95 

shoulder height, and known to almost all sections 
of the Far East. This I saw frequently, though 
it is a solitary wanderer and passes most of its 
time in thick cover, coming out to graze in the 
early morning and at sunset. Its longest antlers 
(of antelope-like form) do not exceed four inches, 
and the head is carried very low, so that it has an 
ungainly, somewhat sheep-like gait, though of con- 
siderable speed. One is constantly hearing its 
somewhat dog-like, somewhat fox-like yelp. 

The other deer most commonly seen is the sam- 
bar (Cervus unicolor), ranging from four to five 
feet at the shoulder, an Oriental species which, 
with its numerous sub-species, is common to 
Burma, Malay, Siam and several of the East 
Indian islands, the most attractive head being car- 
ried by the Celebes variety, although the deer itself 
is smaller than the Indian or Malayan type. 

Then there are the hog deer (Cervus porcinus) 
of India, two and one-half feet at the shoulder, 
which ranges through Burma, although not plenti- 
fully; and the strictly Burmese variety called the 
themeng (Cervus eldi), about the size of a big 
antelope, with its Barren Ground caribou-like ant- 
lers. Except for the Schomburger, the antlers of 
all these deer are of simpler type than those of 
the European or American groups ; as a rule, they 
have a single brow-tine, with the beam rising 



96 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 

nearly straight and terminating usually in a simple 
fork. The sambar is quite the largest of the 
Oriental group, and a fine deer it is, of powerful 
build, standing nearly five feet in height at the 
shoulder in the hills where it is most abundant. 
At the other side of the world, in Argentine and in 
Chili, South America, I found another deer, locally 
known as the huemul, which carries antlers quite 
similar to those of the sambar. 

There are some parts of the Malay Peninsula 
where the Sakais kill the muntjac, and even the 
sambar, w T ith poisoned darts from their blow gun ; 
but none of these Oriental peoples are hunters of 
deer except by the method of watching from a 
platform erected near a drinking hole in the dry 
season. During the rainy season no attempt is 
made to get deer, and therefore they know nothing 
whatever of the science of hunting. Truth to tell, 
hunting craft, wood craft, is of little service in 
these dense Par Eastern jungles, because there is 
no such thing as following game up wind except 
by chance, or of calculating its probable range and 
crossing upon it, or nine times out of ten of cir- 
cumventing it in any legitimate manner. If ever 
the hunter gets the game at a disadvantage it is 
entirely luck ; for there is no other way of hunting 
in these dense jungles than by following tracks 
wherever they may lead. Thus it will happen that 



HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 97 

you may be travelling down wind or up wind. If 
when you come within striking distance you are 
going up wind, a lucky star indeed shines over you. 
If down wind— disappointment, as you hear but 
never catch sight of the fleeing game. Nowhere in 
the world I have hunted is successful stalking 
more difficult than in this piece of Siam-Burma. 
A tangle of hanging things overhead, of creeping 
things underfoot, and of thorn bushes on every 
side; all ready to hold or to prick or to sound 
instant alarm to the wild folk. Stalking through 
such going means travelling as a cat approach- 
ing a mouse— picking up one's feet with utmost 
care and placing them with equal caution, the while 
using your long knife industriously, silently, to 
ease your passage. 

For a few days after leaving the village, Ram's 
habit was to send forth every morning as prelimi- 
nary to the day's hunting, twenty or twenty-five 
Karens to scour the country for tracks; but they 
made so much noise I insisted that the practice be 
abandoned and that the Karens remain in camp 
well away from the region I intended hunting. The 
only real use I got out of these men was in crossing 
streams, as we did with more or less frequency. 
Because of our weakling bullocks, we almost never 
crossed a stream without getting stuck; and on 
such occasions the " hunters " came in handy to 

7 



98 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 

push and haul the carts out to the bank. One day 
we came to a river that was too deep to ford, and 
the Karens saved the situation by swimming the 
bullocks across, after floating over the carts. Then, 
wading chin deep, they portaged on their heads all 
the stuff that had been taken out of the carts, 
shouting and laughing and playing all the time like 
a lot of boys in the old swimming hole. We were 
two days at this place, and the Karens had the time 
of their lives. Meanwhile Phra Ram stood on the 
bank adding his unmusical voice to the general 
hubbub during intervals of betel-nut chewing. 

After this crossing we travelled through some 
fairly open, grassy country, where I saw several 
varieties of handsomely plumaged birds, notably 
a woodpecker, of a glorious golden red. Here we 
had our first view ahead of the " mountains," a 
range of small hills in Burma which looked very 
blue, and of course densely wooded. Soon, how- 
ever, we entered a swampy, noisome section where 
both Nai Kawn and I fought dysentery which the 
drinking water gave us, although we boiled and 
limited to a cup a day. The nights were cool 
enough to make sleeping under a light rug com- 
fortable, but very damp; the tent was wringing 
wet each morning, and our rifles had to be well 
greased every night to keep them free of rust. 

The bullocks here made very slow time, not over 



HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 99 

two miles an hour, the men plugging along single 
file. A week of this, with nothing to cheer the out- 
look, and even the usually lighthearted Karens fell 
into silence. Then one day we came upon firmer 
soil, and within forty-eight hours we sighted a set- 
tlement of three houses. I was in the lead of the 
advance group of my party, and besides discover- 
ing the village, also learned a lesson in native hos- 
pitality. When we arrived all the little group 
with me except Wan left and went into one of the 
houses, where they sat, eating bananas and bamboo 
cane (like sugarcane), none of the residents either 
inviting me into the house or offering me anything 
to eat. Wan was indignant and after a little while 
went to the house where our men sat eating, and 
I could hear the high notes of his complaining 
voice coming fast and furious. Shortly a Karen 
came to me with presents of sugarcane and cocoa- 
nut powder, for which in return I made him a 
present of the seed beads they prize highly. Ex- 
change of presents is the only means of barter with 
these jungle people, who carry all their belongings, 
including betel-nut, the most important, tied into 
a pouch at the end of their loin cloth and hung 
about their middle. 

We had another siege of Ram's court holding at 
this place, and he had to pass judgment on some 
of the most unlovely specimens of the human race 



100 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 

that I ever beheld. Something of the frank nature 
of these courts may be judged when I say that a 
woman, who complained that her husband had left 
her for a younger one, was asked by Ram if she 
had any disease, at which the entire gathering 
yelled with great delight, the woman herself and 
the court (Phra Ram) joining in. In fact Ram 
always got a lot of enjoyment out of these sittings, 
joking plaintiff and defendant impartially, and 
having, obviously, a thoroughly good time. I 
noticed, too, that the presents were always more 
numerous where Ram was in good form ; and you 
may be sure that did not escape the chief, to whom 
the delay here and the further opportunity it 
afforded for court holding and present receiving 
were by no means distasteful. 

Ram told me we were to await the arrival of 
some men who were really hunters of buffalo ; and 
I groaned, for my daily prayer had become that 
I might lose those we already had. But we tarried. 
Meanwhile, Wan and I went out into the surround- 
ing jungle, chiefly with the idea, as far as I was 
concerned, of getting away from the unending im- 
portunities of the dirty people among whom we 
camped. The country immediately surrounding 
these houses was a little bit more open than that 
which we had come through and we saw no buffalo 
tracks but did see a tiger— rather an unusual expe- 



HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 101 

rience, and the only tiger I saw in Siam. We were 
in a very dense bamboo thicket and I was seated, 
smoking, with my rifle standing against a nearby 
bamboo clump. As I sat, a something about 
twenty yards on my right moved, and looking 
quickly, I just got a fleeting glimpse of a tiger 
slinking silently, swiftly out of the bamboo into the 
jungle. I jumped to my feet, but before I could 
seize my rifle it had disappeared. I followed the 
tracks as long as I could see them, but never got 
another sight of the royal beast. 

After three days the arrival of the " buffalo 
hunters " was the signal for a pow-wow that 
lasted well into the night before Ram's tent. Such 
incessant jabbering I have never heard, and every- 
body in the neighborhood gathered to hear and to 
take part in the conference. I fancy everyone 
enjoyed it but me. To my repeated question of 
Ram if the newcomers knew anything of buffalo, 
the chief would as repeatedly reply they had .not 
got to that yet. For most part of the time their 
talk was the gossip of the jungle, usually of the 
character commonly exploited in Ram's open 
court. Thus half the night passed. Finally, how- 
ever, it developed that these men, who had been 
searched out at a neighboring settlement, and for 
whom we had waited three days, had not hunted 
buffalo, but knew another who had killed one! 



102 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 

Ram suggested waiting for the friend; but by this 
time I was bored about all I could hold without 
explosion, and I demanded a start the next morn- 
ing. So next day we moved on, headed for the 
especial section where buffalo were said to be fairly 
plentiful. And now in a few days more we came 
to the real jungle, where it was impossible to take 
the carts, which were sent along to a settlement 
where we were to join them later. I took good 
care to send off with the carts every last man that 
could be spared, keeping with me only those 
actually required as porters, and my Siamese hun- 
ters, Thee, Nuam and Wan. 

I now entered upon two weeks of the hardest, 
most persistent hunting I have ever done. The 
jungle everywhere was of the same dense, matted, 
thorn-filled character, but that was of slight con- 
sequence if only buffalo materialized, as seemed 
likely by the tracks. There was no doubt of the 
game being here. 

The Indian buffalo (Bos buhalos) in its per- 
fectly wild state appears to be restricted to India 
and to up-country sections of the great Indian 
peninsula, including that elevated section where 
Burma and Siam join. So-called wild buffalo are 
found in other parts of the Far East which are, 
however, probably descendants of domesticated 
individuals; for in the Philippines and on the 



HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 103 

Chinese and occasionally on the Malayan coast, the 
buffalo serves as patiently as the bullock, and with 
greater strength. Perhaps, next to the rhino, the 
buffalo in its entirely wild state, is the most difficult 
beast to find because, like the rhino, its favorite 
haunts are the densest jungles, especially in the 
neighborhood of swamps, where patches of thick, 
towering grass provide covered runways, in which 
they are completely concealed. You might pass 
within a dozen feet and not see them. 

In India buffalo are more apt to be in herds 
than in the Siam-Burma section, and in both places 
they are fond of passing the day in the marshes. 
They are related to the Cape buffalo (Bos caffer), 
but distinguished from them by the length and 
sweep of their horns and the wide separation at 
their base; as well as by the less thickly fringed 
ears and 4;he more elongated and narrow head. 
Besides, they are bigger, standing from five to six 
feet at the shoulder, while the Cape species aver- 
ages from four and one-half to five feet. As to 
horns, those of the Indian will average a full ten 
inches longer with an incomparably wider spread. 
The record outside length of an Indian is 77 inches, 
that of the African 49; but the average of the 
former is from 56 to 60, and of the latter 44 to 47 
inches. 

A breed is maintained by the Rajahs of India for 



104 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 

fighting whose horns have not the sweep of the 
Indian buffalo, but the shape of the African, with 
a short curve turning downward over the eye. 
They are tremendously more massive, however, 
having a diameter at the base of twenty-six inches. 

Perhaps a day taken straight from my diary will 
best suggest the kind of hunting I had after this 
Indian buffalo on the Siam-Burma frontier. 

" Started at five o'clock in the morning, my three 
hunters, Thee, Nuam and Wan, and with us a 
Karen, the only one of the Karen crowd supposed 
to know this country. Speedily found tracks, 
which we followed for some little time, the Karen 
going carelessly and noisily, rushing ahead, appar- 
ently bent only on seeing the track without thought 
of the hunters behind him. Within a couple of 
hours of this kind of going we jumped a buffalo ; 
could hear him crashing through the jungle not 
over twenty yards ahead of us. The Karen, in 
much excited state of mind, claimed he had seen 
it; but I did not and I was close behind. This 
experience, however, made me determined to keep 
the Karen back, so I ordered him to the rear and 
put Wan in front of me with the jungle knife, as 
it was necessary to cut our way continuously. 
Much annoyed by the bungling Karen, I tried to 
make him understand my feelings. Ugh— it is to 
laugh. Went ahead again, but the Karen came 



HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 105 

crashing up the line, jumping in ahead of Wan. 
Then I smote him— hard and recurringly. While 
I thus bade him be good another something, which 
we discovered later to be a red ox, jumped up and 
away, crashing and smashing, into the jungle. 
With the Karen again in the rear we went on, and 
soon were on the buffalo tracks. For three hours 
we followed these through dense jungle, finally 
over a hill, and practically all the time moving 
down wind. Suddenly again the buffalo; he got 
our wind and bolted. Could not have been over 
fifteen or twenty yards off, though we could not 
see ten. Three hours later, after hard, patient 
tracking, with Wan in the lead using his parang 
very carefully, we again started the buffalo. 
Again he got our wind. At none of these times 
could we see the beast, although so close to him. 
To get that near to the same buffalo four times in 
one day may have reflected creditably upon our 
tracking, but was extremely disappointing, none 
the less. Such conditions made scoring impossi- 
ble ; you may not take advantage of the wind ; you 
must simply follow the tracks and circle round 
and round or straight away wherever they lead 
you. You make, of course, very little headway, 
consuming a lot of time in you patient plodding, 
for you must literally cut your way. Without the 
experience one can scarcely imagine the strain of 



106 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 

this kind of stalking, not to mention the irritation 
of having around you such blundering hunters. 
The difficulties of getting buffalo are many, but 
especially because they lie up in the dense clumps 
during the day; and it is literally impossible to 
skirt around under cover, as one might do in more 
open country." 

Thus day after day I hunted buffalo, setting out 
in the morning by sunrise and keeping at it without 
cessation until dark. I often took the precaution 
of moving camp several miles from where we 
found or stopped on tracks. And in such manner 
I went over every bit of that buffalo section. 
There were days when I did not start buffalo, days 
when I did not get even on their tracks, but for the 
most part I started game every day of hunting. 
One day, for example, after setting out at daylight 
and walking six miles to tracks, I started nothing 
until late in the afternoon, about four o'clock. 
Another day I found no fresh spoor until shortly 
before sunset, and then I came upon four, a bull, 
two cows and a calf. I was about one hour behind 
them and the tracks were getting fresher as I pro- 
ceeded. The fact that they were leading to a piece 
of jungle a little less dense than usual made me 
hopeful, and I followed as rapidly as I could make 
my way noiselessly, urging Wan to go swiftly, but 
silently ; and Wan did his work well. The tracks 



HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 107 

kept getting fresher and fresher. Suddenly I 
could hear the chopping of bamboo, and shortly 
afterward the tracks indicated that the buffalo had 
begun running. Soon we came almost at our 
camp. The buffalo had got the wind of our camp 
which, together with the noise of bamboo cutting, 
had frightened them out of leisurely travel. The 
men in camp said they had seen the buffalo cross 
just below, running at full speed. 

Next morning at daybreak I picked up these 
tracks again and followed them for eight hours 
through thick jungle swamp, but early in the after- 
noon they led to hard ground and soon we lost 
them. 

It was several days before I found other tracks 
and late, just about dark. So we picked them up 
the next morning and followed all day until nearly 
dark; again through the dense jungle among cu- 
rious clumps of bamboo, raised mound-like as a 
huge ant hill, and occasional trees, looking like 
three or four trees stuck together, having a gross 
diameter of eight to ten feet. We left the tracks 
when it grew too dark to see them, but I deter- 
mined to follow them up in the morning and to go 
on alone with Wan. In fact, my party had by 
now dwindled to Thee, Nuam and Wan, for the 
others, walked to a standstill, had returned to the 
main camp. And indeed I was glad to be rid of 
them. 



108 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 

With the first light of day in the morning we 
found the tracks, but nothing developed until about 
three o'clock when, hearing a little noise, we 
stopped in our stalking and listened. I tried to 
learn the direction of the wind, but it was impos- 
sible to say if there was wind, and if so, what its 
direction. Yet again the noise, and we stood so 
still on those very fresh tracks with the noise of 
the moving buffalo sounding in our ears, that I 
could hear my heart beat. It happened that where 
we stood was about the densest of dense jungle ; we 
were literally encircled with twining rotan, bushes 
and cane and thorn vines. I was fearful of 
moving, but move we must in order to approach 
the buffalo. I took the jungle knife away from 
Wan and gave him my gun, for I wanted to be 
sure no noise was made in cutting our path. Soon 
I discarded the jungle knife and drew the smaller 
one I always carry in my belt for eating and gen- 
eral utility. We made our way a few feet at a 
time, bending low in the effort to get a sight ahead 
and locate the buffalo which we could now plainly 
hear moving. It seemed not over ten or fifteen 
yards off. The* suspense was intense. The most 
agonizing thoughts chased through my head— that 
Wan would drag my rifle, that I would drop my 
knife, or stumble, or something would happen to 
scare off our quarry, or that I might sight it run- 



HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 109 

ning before I could get my rifle ; yet I dared not let 
Wan do the cutting for, good man as lie proved, 
I was afraid of a slip ; so afraid. I could not talk 
to him, could not impress upon him the importance 
of quiet ; but I think my attitude and my gestures 
made him think that something very serious was 
about to happen. 

Foot by foot I got a little nearer. Then there 
came a noise as though the buffalo had started, and 
my heart sank to my boots; yet, listening, it 
appeared he had not moved farther away. Then 
again we began our slow, painfully slow approach, 
all the time dreading that the buffalo might move 
off, even if we did not scare him away, because our 
catlike approach was consuming time. I prayed 
for an open piece of jungle, but it remained as 
dense as at first. Almost crawling on my stomach 
so as to minimize the cutting and to give me a 
better opportunity of seeing in front, I worked 
ahead, hearkening for every sound, and reassured 
by the noise, such as cattle make, when resting, of 
feet stamping and tail switching. 

Finally I thought I could catch sight of the tail 
as it switched, not over ten yards away. I worked 
a little way farther and then reached back and 
took my rifle from Wan, determined now to squirm 
ahead, if it was humanly possible to do so without 
cutting; keeping my rifle at a ready. But it was 



110 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 

utterly impossible to go ahead, and I was making 
noise. I feared I could get no closer in that 
thicket, yet the effort had to be made ; so keeping 
the animal's tail in my eye, I forced forward. The 
noise was startling: the tail stopped switching; it 
seemed to me I could see the outline of the hocks 
stiffen as the buffalo prepared to jump. It was a 
case of sheer desperation ; making a rough guess as 
to where its shoulder might be, I fired, realizing that 
only by an extraordinarily lucky chance could I 
score. Instantly there was a tremendous racket. 
When we got to where the buffalo had stood we 
saw a little blood on the bushes— about rump high. 

We followed the buffalo for the rest of the day— 
for half of the moonlight night— uselessly, for the 
tracks grew dim and the shifting clouds and heavy 
foliage made it quite impossible to see. It was a 
mad chase, and Wan was indulgent enough to 
remain with me uncomplainingly. 

We lay down in the jungle to rest until daylight 
without going to camp, which was far away, and 
then again— the tracks ; but we never saw that buf- 
falo, and I hope no other hunter ever did; for I 
should like now to think that my bullet made only 
a flesh wound which never embarrassed the buf- 
falo's progress, rather than that the beast wan- 
dered, at the mercy of the jungle great cats, to 
fall finally an easy victim, or to die the lingering 
death of the seriously wounded. 






CHAPTER V 
HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 

FOR two days, through the jungle tangle of 
interior Malay, I had been on fresh rhinoc- 
eros tracks. Originally I had found some in 
Perak, only to lose them, and now I found myself 
on others approaching the limits of the up-country 
section. Perak is the most important, as it is the 
most northerly, of the four Federated (British 
protected) States of the Malay Peninsula. It is 
also the most mountainous— and the wettest. They 
told me at Telok Anson, where the coasting steamer 
dropped me, that Perak has no true rainy season ; 
but some months are wetter than others, and I had 
chosen the wettest, it seemed. 

Approaching from the west coast, Perak offers 
an entrancing view— the irregular clearings hacked 
for settlement out of the jungle, their dark trop- 
ical edging, the hills in the immediate background, 
and farther away the Tongkal Range, which helps 
to give Malay its mountainous backbone— all 
wooded to the very top. The State has half a 
dozen peaks over 5,000 feet high, and I had left 
one of these, Gunong (Mount) Lalang, on the west, 

as I bore northeasterly across the head waters of 

in 



112 HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 

the Perak River and over the range, laboriously 
journeying toward Kelantan, a native state which 
pushes into Patani, which again reaches northward 
into Lower Siam. 

I had set out, in the first instance, for a rhino 
that differs from known Malayan varieties in 
having fringes of hair on its ears— the Malayan 
itself being the smallest of the single-horned spe- 
cies—and which was said, on occasion, to wander 
down from Siam into the northern border of 
Malay. But my hunting had been unrewarded, 
and by now I was not particular whether my rhino 
had hair on its ears or on its tail. So I was making 
my way toward the Telubin River, which runs 
down to the China Sea on the east, and where, I 
had been told at Singapore, rhino were reported 
to be plentiful. We had left roads, and the pack 
elephants, half way down on the other side of the 
range, and were pushing forward through the jun- 
gle with five Malay packers, a Chinese cook, and 
a Tamil— eight of us all told. 

It was my first experience packing elephants, 
and their agility and handiness, and the intelli- 
gence with which they accepted and overcame 
unusual conditions in travelling, amazed and inter- 
ested me. Without seeing it I would not have be- 
lieved that so large and apparently clumsy an 
animal could be so nimble, even shifty, on its feet, 



HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 113 

on the trying trails we encountered all through the 
valleys and up and down the mountains. I was 
greatly interested, often amused, at the extreme 
carefulness they exercised. Where the path was 
at all uncertain the trunk explored every step 
before the huge feet were placed, with almost 
mathematical precision. And never for an instant 
was their vigilance relaxed; always the trunk felt 
the way, sounding the road, the bridge, the depth 
of the pool or stream. But perhaps their climbing 
up steep ascents, and over ground so slippery that 
I, with hobnailed shoes, could scarcely secure foot- 
hold, impressed me most. One instance of their 
resourcefulness especially surprised me. We 
came to a sharp, clayey incline, at the top of which 
the bank had broken away, leaving an absolutely 
sheer place about eight feet in height. I won- 
dered how the elephants would manage this, but 
it did not bother them as much as it had me, for 
the leader simply put his trunk over the top of 
the bank, raised himself up until he got his fore- 
feet on top of it, and then with trunk and forelegs 
dragged his great body over the edge until his hind 
legs were under him. 

The elephant is not a fast traveller, though he 
is sure and of enormous strength. I never saw 
one slip, and they kept going even when sunk belly 
deep in the swamp. Three miles the hour was 

8 



114 HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 

our average, which fell to two in the hilly country, 
and in the mountains I doubt if we made over 
one mile an hour. Each elephant carried six to 
seven hundred pounds on fair roads, as a good 
load, which was reduced to four hundred pounds 
when they began climbing. 

I was without an interpreter. The one I had 
engaged for the trip died of cholera before we got 
beyond the settlement, and as the rainy season is 
the most unhealthful period for a venture into the 
jungle, I was unable to replace him. My Tamil 
servant knew a few English words— knew them so 
imperfectly as to put to confusion every attempt 
at mutual understanding. 

After the first couple of days winding into the 
hills past tin mines, the most valued deposit in 
the State, our trail through Perak led across 
swamps, over mountains, and up and down valleys 
—and always in mud— sometimes up to knees, 
always over ankles. Once we had got deep into 
the jungle, a view ahead was never possible, even 
on top of the mountains, because of the density of 
the great forest. And such a dismal jungle ! Not 
even a bird note; not a sound of any kind, save 
that made by the squashing of our own feet in the 
oozy going. 

The interior of Malay is covered with a primeval 
forest of upstanding trees, limbless to their very 



HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 115 

tops, where, umbrella-like, they open into great 
knobs of foliage, and form a huge canopy so thick 
that not a ray of sunlight may break through. Be- 
neath is the most luxuriant and wettest vegetation 
to be found on earth. Palms, bamboos, ferns, and 
plants of rankest and endless variety, hide the 
ground and rise to form yet another forest of 
smaller though thicker growth ; while rattans and 
vines and creeping things stretch from tree to tree, 
to make a continuous series of giant festoons. 

And the malarial smell everywhere. 

It required a heavy rain to come steadily through 
that close canopy; but it arrived. Nor was the 
rain needed to complete our drenching ; except for 
the footing there was little appreciable difference 
wading the chin-deep streams, or plowing through 
the dripping jungle under that leaky canopy. In- 
deed, the stream wading was much to be preferred, 
for only at such times we escaped the leeches. 

Leeches and lizards and centipedes and number- 
less other varieties of crawling unpleasantness 
were, in fact, the only living things I had seen thus 
far. And of leeches there were literally myriads. 
They fastened upon you actually from crown to 
foot, as you worked your way through the ferns 
and grasses, which reach high above your head. 
Notwithstanding carefully adjusted puttees and a 
closely tied handkerchief, it was impossible to keep 



116 HUMAN TEEE-DWELLEES 

leeches from getting in at the ankle and at the 
neck. Every now and again, we halted to pick off 
those we could reach ; and then you could see them 
on all sides making slow but persistent way toward 
you, in alternate stretchings and humpings. 

This was not ideal country for camping, as may 
be imagined. Dry ground, even a dry log to rest 
upon, was not to be found; but the shelter the 
Malays built each night at least protected us from 
the unceasing rain. These were simply made, ser- 
viceable little sheds, constructed of the always at 
hand bamboo and attap leaves in no longer time 
than it takes to pitch a tent. Here was the one 
occasion when the mud seemed a blessing, for it 
proved a yielding, yet firm setting for the four 
sticks which served as corner posts and the two 
longer ones placed at each end to support a ridge 
pole. Smaller bamboo and, as often as not, rattan, 
placed at the sides, and bent and secured across 
the ridge pole, completed the frame, over which 
were stretched the large and useful leaves of the 
attap palm. Inside, again, corner posts with slats 
of bamboo laid lengthways made very comfortable 
beds; and, with crossway slats, stout benches for 
our provisions and general camp impedimenta: 
for, of course it was necessary to raise everything 
damageable above the mud. 

So we travelled on and on, looking for tracks, 




THE LARGER AND MORE COMMON TYPE OF SAKAI. 



His sole weapon consists of the blow-gun and quiver of poisoned darts, which he shoots with great 

accuracy. 



HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 117 

dragging ourselves for hours, ankle-deep in mud, 
along stretches of swamp, where the rhino feed 
appeared particularly tempting (although rhino 
generally feed early in the morning and at dusk) , 
or, crouched until walking was all but impossible, 
sneaking into every more than usually dense bit of 
cover which suggested a pool or a rhino bed. It 
was wet, cheerless work ; and what gets wet in that 
jungle stays wet. Except for the water you have 
wrung out of them, the soaked clothes you hang 
at night on a bamboo stake driven deep into the 
mud are equally as soaked when you try to put 
them on again in the morning bright-light. 

My men did not appear to take much interest 
in the search for rhino; indeed, they pursued the 
journey with great reluctance, for at best the 
Malay is not a hunter; stalking game does not 
appeal to him. He never, by choice, hunts in the 
rainy season, but takes the more sensible method 
of sitting up over an animal's drinking hole in 
the dry period, or over a bait. Besides, they stand 
much in awe of the rhino, which they rarely hunt, 
notwithstanding its blood and horn being worth 
almost their weight in gold at the Chinese chem- 
ists', who use them in mystical medical concoc- 
tions. Once we found plain tracks that in due 
course led down the mountain to a rushing, roaring 
stream, which we could not cross, although the 



118 HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 

tracks showed that the rhino had at least made 
the attempt, and nowhere for a mile down stream 
could we find signs on our side that he had not 
succeeded. This experience came near to stopping 
the expedition, for the Malays seemed determined 
to turn back, and as I was without even the first 
aid to communication which my Tamil servant 
(before I sent him back ill with fever) furnished, 
I had recourse to looking pleasant and offering 
gifts. Finally we did go on, though the Malays 
had no liking for it, and were sullen. 



There had been days of this kind of experience, 
so that when I actually came on fresh tracks, my 
thankfulness was both deep and sincere. At first 
the tracks were distinct, and I had no difficulty in 
following them, particularly where, for a consider- 
able distance, they led through what may be called 
a jungle runway, which is a passage forced through 
the heaviest underbrush by the rhino, and of such 
density that, were you standing within a half dozen 
feet, the beast might go through unseen, though 
not of course unheard. But on this, the second 
day, the tracks led up hill from the swampy land 
of the valley. The rain was falling unusually 
hard, and the water flowed down the hillside almost 
in streams, making it, of course, very difficult to 




THE SMALLER AND LESS COMMON TYPE OF SAKAI. 



A father and his two sons. They carry the poisonous darts in their hair, and very closely resemble 
the Negritos of the Philippines. 



HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 119 

follow the tracks— sometimes entirely obliterating 
them. Hence I worked forward slowly. I had 
ceased to depend upon my men, though I kept two 
up with me, leaving the others to come more leis- 
urely with the packs, so that at nightfall we camped 
where we happened to be— which was about as 
good a plan as any other, for there was no choice 
of camping ground in that country. 

All morning I followed the tracks with extreme 
difficulty, but in the early afternoon they led to 
drier ground, which as it approached the hilltop 
became more open, and, far in advance of my two 
men, I pushed my way along more rapidly, with 
all attention focussed upon the tracks, and every 
hunter's sense tingling in exquisite alertness. 
Suddenly and noiselessly, a something seemed to 
dodge behind a tree ; then another, and yet another 
—and still a fourth— all in front and to right and 
left of me. I saw no definite shape— merely 
caught the glimpse of a moving object as the eye 
will, without actually seeing it. I knew it could 
not be a rhino. As I stood, I caught sight of a 
black-topped head looking furtively at me from 
behind a tree, but it popped back instantly on my 
discovery. Then another head from behind 
another tree, and again a third, and so on until it 
became a game of hide and seek with some times 
several heads poked out, turtle fashion, from be- 



120 HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 

hind the concealing trees. I could get but the 
merest glance, but that told me the heads did not 
belong on Malay shoulders, and yet I knew not 
what they were, nor was I prepared to see human 
beings of any kind in this country, friendly or un- 
friendly, although I had heard tales of half -wild 
people, Sakais, that roamed the northern section 
of Malay. I am a believer in preparedness, how- 
ever, especially when the atmosphere is unfriendly, 
as my sullen party suggested it might be, so I 
backed against a tree, with cocked rifle, and in 
addition to the full half -magazine, took four car- 
tridges out of my belt that I might have them in 
hand did the necessity arise. Thus I stood ready 
for whatever emergency might come. There was 
no movement on the part of my hidden watchers, 
however, other than that the heads continued pop- 
ping out and back, and from many new quarters, 
keeping me busily watchful. It was the most 
acute case of rubber-neck I have ever developed. 
Thus I stood waiting for something to happen, and 
impatient to exasperation after ten minutes of this 
rubbering game that nothing did happen. 

At last came my two Malays. The heads now all 
popped out and stayed out, but nobody followed 
from behind the trees. As he took in the situa- 
tion, Pari, my head man, pointed energetically at 
the heads and repeated over and again " Sakai "— 



HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 121 

by which I learned I had indeed fallen in with the 
tree-dwelling aborigines of Malaya. 

Some long-range conversation was now begun 
between my Malays and the heads, and finally, with 
evident hesitation, a man stepped from behind one 
of the trees, and in the course of a few minutes was 
joined by others, until there were eight of them 
grouped fifty or sixty feet away, regarding us with 
very apparent suspicion. Except for a small loin 
covering they were naked, and some of them 
were painted in fantastic figures. More long range 
talk followed, and the strangers' voices sounded 
curiously high and nasal. Several minutes more 
of jabber, and my men started toward the Sakais, 
who immediately darted back in trepidation, and 
would have fled had not the Malays stopped, and, 
I judge, shouted friendly messages to them. Back 
and forth, with long intervals, this shouting con- 
tinued for fully an hour. Meantime, as it was im- 
possible for me to hold conversation with any one, 
I, of course, had no actual knowledge of what they 
were saying; but I surmised that the strangers 
feared us, and that the Malays were endeavoring 
to pacify them. 

By this time the remainder of my party had 
arrived, and a general babel ensued. Finally, with 
one accord, the Sakais disappeared, and one of my 
men went forward, carrying rice, which he depos- 



122 HUMAN TREE-DWELLEES 

ited at the base of a tree where the strangers had 
been standing. Then lie returned to us. In ten 
or fifteen minutes the Sakais came back, their 
numbers greatly augmented, took away the rice, 
and replaced it with some roots and other things 
which looked like vegetables or fruit. 

It was early in the afternoon when I had first 
sighted the Sakais, but what with palaver and ex- 
change of gifts and long-range conversation, dusk 
came upon us while we tarried. I had not for- 
gotten the rhino, but I had not quite found myself 
in these new surroundings and thought best to 
make haste slowly. Moreover, I was sincerely 
glad for the opportunity of seeing something of 
these Sakais, because they are a people about whom 
almost nothing is known, and of whom only one 
white man— an Italian— Captain GL B. Cerruti, has 
made a study. 

They seemed to be very curious, and quite de- 
sirous of watching us, but were shy of our ap- 
proaching them. They hung on the edge of our 
camp, maintaining a constant jabber with my 
Malays. With a thought of getting better ac- 
quainted, I went toward them, but they fled precip- 
itately, and although I walked after them, they 
never permitted me to get near. It occurred to 
me that my rifle, perhaps, might be a bar to closer 
acquaintance, so I went back to camp and laid it 



HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 123 

down— taking the precaution to unload it and keep 
on my cartridge belt— the Sakais curiously fol- 
lowing like a flock of birds, all reappearing at a 
distance of forty or fifty feet, in open sight, so 
soon as I reached camp. But I got no nearer 
them without the rifle than with it. Always, so 
soon as I started toward them, they disappeared, 
evidently keeping close watch of me, because as I 
retraced my steps they were visible again. 

Determined to stop in the vicinity until I should 
learn a little more of these people, I moved up the 
hill to get out of the mudhole in which we had 
camped, and discovered a tree with what at first 
sight appeared a strange new growth, but, on close 
inspection, developed into a rude tiny house, with 
a small head and beady eyes peering at me from its 
platform. Farther on was another tree-house, and 
near it several others. I motioned my Malays to 
stop here, but our camping preparations raised 
such a commotion among the Sakais hovering on 
our van that in order to mollify them we moved on. 

These houses are built in forked trees, from eight 
to twelve feet above the ground, and are reached 
by bamboo ladders, which are hoisted at will. The 
house itself is very much of the kind of shack we 
put up for each night's shelter, except that the 
flooring is lashed together piece by piece and bound 
securely to the tree limbs with rattan— the sides 



124 HUMAN TEEE-DWELLEES 

and top covered with attap. Unfortunately, the 
continuous rain and semi-dusk of the jungle made 
it impossible for me to secure photographs of these 
houses. 

I spent a couple of days in the vicinity, even 
climbed the frail bamboo ladder. into one of their 
houses, keeping my rifle slung over my shoulder, 
however, lest some of the Sakais opposed my in- 
trusion with the blow-guns many carried. But I 
never got nearer than twenty feet or so of an indi- 
vidual, though I had the opportunity of examining 
their blow-guns and darts, and their various bam- 
boo ornaments, which through signs and gifts, I 
got them to deposit on the ground for my inspec- 
tion—they always retreating as I drew near. 
They grew increasingly generous in their presents 
in return for my gifts to them; yet, always the 
same method of presentation had to be followed. 
I never could get within arm's reach of them. 

These men of the woods (Orang-utang) or 
Sakais, as more commonly they are known, are the 
aborigines of Malaya, and to be found in greatest 
numbers in the northern part of Perak, east of the 
river of that name— the Sakai population is esti- 
mated, I believe, at about five thousand. They are 
a smallish people, though not dwarfish or so small 
as the Negritos of the Philippine Islands, of 
lighter complexion than the Malays, though not 



HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 125 

nearly so pleasing to the eye. Indeed, they are 
far from comely. They have no idols, no priests, 
no places or things of worship, no written lan- 
guage, and their speech is a corrupted form of 
Malay. They live in small settlements, invariably 
in trees if in the jungle, with no tribal head. But 
though an altogether uncivilized people, by no 
means are they savage. It is a simple, unwarlike 
race, so raided by the Malays, in times mostly gone 
now that British influence has spread throughout 
the Peninsula, that they are exceedingly shy of 
all strangers: and particularly fearful of chance 
Malays in the forests. There are, however, groups 
of Sakais living on the outskirts of Malayan settle- 
ments that have lost a considerable amount of their 
timidity, and these have adopted the Malayan 
sarong (skirt) ; but in the jungle their full dress 
costume consists of a small piece of cloth, pounded 
out of tree bark, wrapped about the loins of the 
adult men and women, while young men and 
women and the children pursue the course of their 
untrammelled way clothed only in nose-sticks, ear- 
rings, armlets, and hair combs. The women, in 
fact, are much given to adorning themselves with 
these things, and employ a lighter quality of bark, 
which they decorate in black dots and lines, to bind 
their hair. I marvelled at the number of combs 
one woman would usej but the reason is the very 



126 HUMAN TEEE-DWELLERS 

unromantic one that many combs they believe to be 
disease preventive. 

Both men and women decorate their faces, and 
sometimes their bodies, mostly in red, yellow or 
black, with flower and line or zigzag patterns. 
Sometimes they stripe themselves after the manner 
of zebra markings ; again in spots like the leopard. 
They seek to make their appearance as terrifying 
as possible to embolden them on their journeys 
against the wind, to which they attribute every ill 
that befalls them. Lightning, thunder, rainbows 
—all such heavenly phenomena are regarded as the 
messengers of the " bad ghost " of the wind, from 
whom they tremblingly implore deliverance. They 
are excessively superstitious, and on occasions of 
fright the women offer lighted coals and bundles 
of their children's hair, while the men shoot poi- 
soned darts from their blow-guns in the general 
endeavor to propitiate the evil gods. As a rule 
they are honest in word and deed, and a moral 
people in their own way. 

Here, deep in the jungle of Malay, did I, at last 
in the Far East, find a people for whom the legend 
" Made in Germany " had no significance ; all their 
articles of ornament (save the necklace, which is 
composed of seeds and animals' teeth) and utility 
are constructed entirely of the ubiquitous bamboo, 
as is the blow-gun, called sumpitan. This " gun " 




SAKAIS CUTTING DOWN A TREE. 



CAPTAIN CERRUTTI. 



The man cutting is about 30 feet from the ground and the tree is 200 feet high and 6 feet in diameter. 

They build the scaffolding and fell the tree in one day, using only the small crude axe 

such as that seen in the topmost man's hand. 



HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 127 

is a pipe about an inch and one-half in diameter 
and six and one-half feet in length; the bore, 
drilled most accurately, is quarter inch, and the 
darts nine inches in length, about the circumfer- 
ence of a heavy darning needle, are sharpened at 
one end, and poisoned. With these they secure all 
the meat they eat in the jungle: birds, monkeys, 
snakes, lizards. They also have knives made of 
bamboo, with which they cut roots, herbs, #nd 
fruits. I was amazed at the marksmanship of the 
Sakais with these blow-guns ; frequently I saw them 
hit with precision and repeated accuracy small 
targets full sixty feet distant; and they appeared 
able to drive a dart into the crawling flesh of 
lizard as far as it could be seen. I did not see 
them gunning for leeches; from any visible sign 
to the contrary, the leeches did not seem to bother 
them. At the same time I observed that they were 
cautious about drinking the stagnant jungle water, 
and that they would go far to fill their buckets, 
which were hollow bamboo about three feet long 
and four inches in diameter, from the valley 
streams. They seemed fond of music, if con- 
tinuous effort may be accepted as indication of a 
musical soul, and the girls twanged a not unpleas- 
antly queer tune on a crude, two-stringed hollow 
instrument. Once I saw a man with a kind of 
flute, which he blew shrilly with his nose. 



128 HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 

The woman, who is very fond of children, has 
the entire management of the domestic economy, 
and is placed at the head of the man's establish- 
ment without other ceremony than climbing the 
ladder leading to his castle in the air. But the 
preliminary courtship is unique; the girl (she is 
usually twelve to fourteen) is decorated in pat- 
terns of red, yellow and black flowers, and is then 
prepared for the struggle with her wooer, some- 
what after the manner of the "Bundlers"— only 
the Sakais girl is without the help of raiment to 
aid in her defense. I am not familiar with the 
details of the Bundlers' custom, but the well-chap- 
eroned Sakais maiden is supposed to successfully 
resist the "man of the woods" for a good twelve 
hours ; after which period she submits, and in due 
course climbs his bamboo ladder. 

And always, so far as my observations went, men 
and women appeared to share toil and fruits of 
the chase in common. They are, in truth, the only 
genuine socialists that I have yet discovered. 
They divide their blessings and share one another's 
sorrows. Apropos of which latter I am not likely 
soon to forget the funeral I witnessed of a Sakais 
who died the morning I broke camp to move from 
their midst. Every one belonging to the little 
band of twenty gathered around the lamented, who 
lay stretched out with bark cloth under him and 



HUMAN TREE-DWELLERS 129 

a variety of lizards chasing one another under and 
over him. The mourners, all bepainted in fantas- 
tic and grotesque designs, constantly moved around 
the dead and the lizards, as though performing a 
dance, and yet their movements were without 
enough uniformity to suggest dancing. Certainly, 
it was a very crude and weird ceremony, weird to a 
degree in the gloom and the rain of the jungle, 
especially the moaning and wailing. I never 
heard such direful sounds from human throat ; and 
I have heard some startling exhibitions by Amer- 
ican Indians. 

The body did not long remain in state. When it 
was lashed to a tree limb, together with blow-gun 
and fishing tackle, the wailing ceased; and I went 
on my way. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE TROTTING RHINO OF KELANTAN 

IT all came about through my quest of that hairy- 
eared rhino of Chittagong, which is said to 
wander down from lower Siam into upper Malay, 
and which already, for one laborious period in 
mud and rain, I had chased through eastern Perak. 
But a two-horned variety of the Indian species, as 
this Chittagong type is claimed to be, was unusual 
enough to stir any hunter's blood, and to send me 
forth, time after time, into the dense, wet and 
leech-filled jungle. 

"Writing broadly, the rhinoceros is divided into 
the African, which invariably wears a smooth skin 
and carries two horns; and the Indian, wilh skin 
in heavy folds and one horn. 

Among diligent collectors for scientific institu- 
tions and uninformed hunters, there appears to be 
a tendency to subdivide the rhino with a patronage 
as reckless as that visited upon the caribou. F. 
C. Selous, who, in my opinion, has more real prac- 
tical knowledge about African big game, and espe- 
cially about the rhino, than any man living— says 
there are but two species of the African rhino : the 
squared-lipped one, the " white " so-called (R. 

130 



THE TKOTTING EHINO 131 

simus), averaging over six feet in height, which 
feeds on grass, and is therefore seen more in the 
open ; and the prehensile-lipped or black (R. bicor- 
nis), averaging five feet, which frequents thickets 
or brush covered hills, and feeds on twigs, roots 
and brush. Except for the varying length of their 
horns, the African do not differ among themselves 
so much as the Asiatic; nor does wide divergence 
in length of horn suggest structural differences 
any more in this animal than spread of antlers and 
number of points do in moose, wapiti, or other 
American deer. Yet the horns of African rhinos 
show great variation. The lower or first horn may 
be any length from one foot and a half to four feet, 
though this extreme is not often seen these days, 
three feet being about the limit ; the upper or second 
horn may be from three or four inches up to two 
feet. At times the two horns are about equal and 
then the length is medium ; by some this is declared 
a sub-species called " ketloa ": more often, how- 
ever, the lower horn is considerably longer than the 
upper. As between horns of the African and the 
Asiatic, those of the former have, as a rule, more 
curve and run quicker to a point ; and in length the 
Asiatic are insignificant by comparison— fifteen 
inches being unusual, and eight more nearly the 
average of the Indian proper, while three or four 
inches would be the length of the other Asiatic 



132 THE TEOTTING EHINO 

species. Occasionally the lower horn of the 
African is straight, the white variety usually fur- 
nishing the individual; and specimens have been 
reported among the black variety in which the 
lower horn even curved forwards. And in all 
instances these horns may be powerful weapons of 
defence; powerful enough to instil unconcealed 
dread among elephants. 

Opinion among hunters differs as to just the 
rank of the rhino as dangerous game ; Selous places 
it fourth after lion, elephant, buffalo. I am ex- 
pecting this year to have my first lion hunting 
experience, but the royal tiger has never given me 
so much the feeling of danger as has the elephant; 
or the Malayan seladang* (gaur) or the rhino; and 
no jungle in this world places the hunter at so 
great a disadvantage as in Malaya, where the dense 
matted cover necessitates shooting game at close 
quarters. I have always fully realized that the 
tiger, if he got to me, could and would do me more 
damage in less time perhaps than any one of the 
others; but also I always felt more confidence in 
being able to stop him. The disturbing element 
in hunting elephant or seladang or rhino, has been 
always, to me at least, the feeling of uncertainty 
as to whether or no I could stop the animal if I 

* Local name for wild cattle. 



OP KELANTAN 133 

wounded it and it charged me, as it did on an 
average of once in three times. Based on my expe- 
rience, therefore, I should place the elephant first 
and the rhino third after the seladang, which is 
fully as formidable as the Cape buffalo, and is mis- 
called the bison all over India. 

Each of these animals is dangerous on different 
grounds ; the elephant though less likely to charge 
than any of the others, is terrifying because of his 
enormous strength, which stops at no obstacle, and 
the extreme difficulty of reaching a vital spot, espe- 
cially if, with trunk tightly coiled, he is coming 
your way. I know of no sensation more awesome 
than standing ankle deep in clinging mud, in dense 
cover, with the jungle crashing around you as 
though the entire forest was toppling, as the ele- 
phant you have wounded comes smashing his way 
in your direction. The seladang is dangerous, 
partly because of the thick jungle he seeks when 
wounded, but more especially because of his tre- 
mendous vitality and his usual, though not invar- 
iable, habit of awaiting the hunter on his tracks 
and charging suddenly, swiftly, and viciously. It 
requires close and hard shooting to bring down one 
of these six-foot specimens of Oriental cattle. 

The danger of the tiger and of the lion is in their 
lightning activity and ferocious strength ; but you 
have the shoulder, in addition to the head shot, if 



134 THE TROTTING RHINO 

broadside; or, if coming on, the chest, all sure to 
stop if well placed. The reason the rhino is so 
formidable is because its vulnerable spots are so 
hard to reach. Its brain is as small in propor- 
tion as that of the elephant, and may be reached 
through the eye if head on, or about three inches 
below and just in front or just behind the base of 
the ear, according to your position for a side shot. 
Now a charging rhino presents only the eye as the 
vulnerable point, and to put a bullet into the small 
eye of a rhino is pretty fine shooting; but that is 
the only fatal shot to be had from the front : and 
if you miss, your only recourse is quick dodging 
to one side as the rhino reaches you, and drop- 
ping it with a shot at the base of the ear or back 
of the shoulder. In the smooth-skinned rhino the 
shoulder shot is a possibility, but to strike the 
shoulder blade you must aim from six to eight 
inches to one foot below the highest middle point 
of the hump, the danger being in getting too low 
and striking the massive bones of the upper fore- 
arm. The junction of a cross line drawn from 
the ear to another line at right angles running 
down from the highest part of hump is the place 
to put your bullet. It is no mark for light rifles. 
Directly back of the shoulder is another alterna- 
tive; but with the Indian you must shoot for the 
fold, which again is fine shooting, and in all of 



OF KELANTAN 135 

the species you must take the shot when the fore- 
leg is forward. In any event, it is difficult to score, 
for the rhino's body is powerfully made and closely 
ribbed. There is also the neck shot for the spine 
—not easy to locate. Of course, every hunter of 
real experience has made easy kills of dangerous 
game, and it is only the ignorant who draw con- 
clusions from half experience by themselves or of 
others. Like elephants, rhino sleep during the 
heat of the day, hidden in dense cover, and feed 
during the cool of the early morning and evening, 
and during the night. Their sight is poor, but 
their sense of smell and hearing very acute. 
Though sullen and vicious, I doubt if a rhino in- 
tends charging home every time he starts up wind 
on the strange scent which has come to him. Often 
it is, I have grown to believe, merely his means of 
investigating, in the absence of good eyesight. I 
have seen him turn aside on such a " charge " 
when not hit, and other hunters report similar 
observations. At the same time the rhino's ill 
temper makes him an uncertain creature to deal 
with and an unsafe one with his swift trot to 
allow too close for purely experimental purposes. 
The government-protected, square-lipped, Af- 
rican rhino, of which very few are remaining, is 
the largest— specimens nearly seven feet high at 
the shoulders have been reported— and next to this 



136 THE TROTTING RHINO 

is the single horn Indian proper (R. unicornis), 
with its skin in great deep folds behind and 
across the shoulders and across the thighs, which 
averages about six feet in height at the shoulders. 
The Malayan division of the Asiatic includes the 
Javanese, with fewer folds than the Indian, and 
one horn; and the Sumatran, with no skin folds 
and usually two horns, which averages about four 
feet and ranges over Sumatra, Burma and the 
Malay Peninsula. Besides this is a smaller spe- 
cies in the Peninsular, sometimes called the swamp 
rhino, with a smooth skin and a single horn. Then 
there is also the mythical' (so far as experience 
of mine goes) , hairy-eared rhino hailing from Chit- 
tagong. The second or upper horn of the Suma- 
tran rhino is not very prominent, often it is a mere 
knob ; it was nothing more than that on the one I 
killed, which measured four feet one inch shoul- 
der height— and the swamp one often has no horn 
at all. 

And so, because of the rarity of the hairy-eared 
variety, I went forth again to seek it. None could 
give me helpful information; there were only the 
vague rumors of its range, drawn mostly from 
jungle natives coming occasionally out to the set- 
tlements. And I had already made one hard and 
fruitless trip in the Peninsula, largely as the result 
of mis-direction from local white residents, who 



OF KELANTAN 137 

meant well enough by me, and talked large and 
vaguely of game in the mountains, but knew noth- 
ing by experience. One fine sportsman-like chap 
liad killed several tigers and had no interest in 
anything else. The fact is, the country I sought 
to enter was almost entirely a closed book to the 
handful of town-living Englishmen; and the na- 
tives hunt only by necessity. However, this is all 
part of the enjoyment of the great game of wilder- 
ness hunting. 

Hence, despite several failures that had attended 
previous hunting in the Peninsula, I found myself 
preparing for another try at Kuala Muda, a little 
kampong (settlement) on the upper waters of the 
Perak, which I had reached from Penang via 
Taiping by gharry* and bridle path and canoe. 
Like most kampongs, Kuala Muda was substan- 
tially a collection of attap-covered bamboo houses 
of one room each with wide covered veranda, 
standing about six feet above ground, on or near 
the water, and supporting a mingled population 
of Malays, Tamils, Klingsf and Chinese, living 
together in the peaceful pursuit of their vocations 
without interference ; for the divisions of labor in 
the Peninsula appear to be thoroughly understood 
and accepted. 

*A one-horse two-wheel cart commonly used for road travel 
in the Peninsula. 

t Tamils and KLings, natives of India. 



138 THE TROTTING RHINO 

As in Siam, so also in Malay, John Chinaman is 
the industrial backbone of his adopted home. Ixi 
the country, he controls the farms; in town, he 
owns all the pawn shops (which outnumber those 
of any other one kind), monopolizes the opium 
and the kerosene trade, is the sampan and jin- 
rikisha coolie, and supplies the labor for the tin 
mines and the coffee plantations. Of Singapore's 
about 200,000 inhabitants, two-thirds are China- 
men ; and in that two-thirds is owned local steam- 
ship lines, a considerable share of the wholesale 
trade, over half the retail trade : it also furnishes 
the city with practically all its carpenters, brick- 
layers, tailors, shoemakers, market gardeners, fish- 
ermen, and many of its clerks, for banks, offices 
and shops. In fact, Singapore could not exist 
prosperously, nor the Peninsula either, for that 
matter, without the Chinamen. 

The Tamils and the Klings are boatmen and 
general day laborers; especially trainmen and 
railway employes; the Sikhs, England's fine and 
dependable native Indian soldiers, are always rail- 
way gate keepers; also they are the policemen of 
Malay. And how they do bullyrag the natives, 
especially poor John! The Malays supply the 
boys about the clubs, houses, stables and boats, 
where no constant hard work is required. They 
are the syces (drivers) and canoemen of the 
country. 



OP KELANTAN 139 

For me the Malay has an attractive personality. 
Wherever I found him, from Singapore to Keda, 
on my several trips at intervals into the Peninsula, 
he was very rarely the bloodthirsty, sullen, silent 
creature of which we have had so often the pen 
picture. He is, to be sure, thriftless, indolent, 
unambitious; but he is polite, good-natured, con- 
tented ; and I am not so sure that those last thr^e 
qualities do not make the more human and lovable 
fellow being. Above all else, and the quality 
which appealed most strongly to me— the Malay is 
intensely self-respecting; he is absolutely sure of 
himself and at ease always whatever the company. 
He is reserved, self-contained, and never by any 
chance falls a victim to the contempt bred of 
familiarity. He resents insult so strongly that 
bloodshed may result; but between themselves 
much serious trouble usually is due to jealousy, 
though for Mohammedans they allow their women 
much liberty. 

Like our American Redman, the Malay is delib- 
erate of speech and circuitous in introducing the 
subjects which perhaps may be uppermost in his 
mind; and he is not demonstrative. He walks 
erect, and he looks you in the eye— a very pleasing 
quality when you have had to deal with the cring- 
ing inhabitants of Par Eastern countries. Though 
he offers no obstacle, yet the Malay holds in con- 



140 THE TROTTING BHINO 

tempt his compatriot who falls into the ways of 
the white man or becomes a convert to the white 
man's doctrines; the comparatively rare Malay 
policeman, for instance, becomes a thing apart to 
be treated with elaborate and chilling courtesy. 
He is a fatalist, and views imprisonment as a mis- 
fortune to be classed with the catching of fever; 
purely a matter of caprice, which, together with 
the jail where he may lodge with comparative com- 
fort, he accepts with composure. 

Nor is the Malay strong intellectually; they have 
practically no literature and are without apparent 
desire to acquire knowledge. Yet despite the in- 
significant part taken in the industrial develop- 
ment of the Peninsula, his speech is the lingua of 
the country— the Italian of the East. The nature 
of the Malay is poetical; to him the sun is mata- 
Jiari—eje of day; the brook is anak sungei— son 
of a river. Midnight is the noon of the night in 
his tongue; and when he wishes to tell you that 
he is sorrowful or angry, he says he is sakit hati— 
sick at heart. He likens a pretty young bride unto 
" a sarong not yet unfolded." And, as may be 
supposed, he is very superstitious with good and 
bad luck signs of many kinds, one of which pro- 
claims it ill luck to start on a journey in the rain, 
because rain signifies tears, a superstition more 
honored in the breach than in the observance, how- 



OF KELANTAN 141 

ever, for if rain prevented trips in the Malay Pe- 
ninsula, there would not be much travelling. 
Another curious superstition I came across at the 
very edge of the jungle warns a talking visitor 
from leaning against the steps of a dwelling lest 
a funeral come to that house. 

Of the Malay social life much of good could 
be said ; it is enough here to say that there are no 
old maids in the Malay Peninsula and fewer public 
women proportionately than, I dare say, in any 
other country in the world. The Malay is allowed 
four wives, but he is too wise to take the limit 
simultaneously or to be on with the new before he 
is off with the old ; and though he may divorce and 
replace without very much difficulty, the women 
also have privileges, which, in the better classes, 
means settlements, division of property and the 
children provided for by law. Families are small. 
The girls marry young, and marriage in the Pe- 
ninsula apparently is a success, for little is heard 
of drunken husbands or mischief -making women. 
It is true that the Malay is sometimes a law unto 
himself, that when he wants a thing it is difficult 
for him, in the jungle, to recognize other tenets 
than the one that might makes right; yet he is 
amenable at the last. The present peaceful, pros- 
perous and happy condition of the Malay Penin- 
sula, which in 1873 was astir with rebellion, is 



142 THE TROTTING RHINO 

notable testimony to the eminent success of British 
rule. There are lessons here for American Con- 
gressmen if they but have sense to take them, that 
will serve us well in the Philippines. 

My few days in the little kampong were inter- 
esting and peaceful. No mangy intrusive dogs 
sniffed at my heels, and nearby mothers kept sooth- 
ing care of their babies. Eoom was made for me 
in one of the largest and newest appearing houses 
and every possible attention shown. Particularly 
the absence of curiosity on the part of my host and 
family and their consideration and respect for my 
solitary position impressed me. It was in strik- 
ing contrast to experiences elsewhere, in my own 
country as well as in other foreign lands. They 
studiously avoided intruding and allowed no 
crowds of wide-eyed and open-mouthed stragglers 
to stand gaping at me or fingering my belongings. 
I was not, in other words, a subject of idle curiosity 
for either the residents or the native travellers that 
were passing by. I was not on exhibition, as I 
had often been when placed in similar positions in 
my wilderness wanderings. Really I was having 
a very comfortable time. During the day I ex- 
plored nearby streams and wandered in the jungle 
trying to get a look at some of the birds; and at 
night I was always abundantly entertained by the 
delightful native music, which tuned up after the 



OF KELANTAN 143 

evening meal had been finished and the people 
gathered at an open shed-like building under some 
large trees. 

Before I left the kampong there came a feast 
day with festivities lasting from late in the after- 
noon until near dawn of the following morning, 
and comprising almost continuous music— without, 
by the way, a single change in any of the musicians 
—and several dances in which both women and 
men performed, some of the latter having their 
faces made up grotesquely. One dance engaged 
three young girls, whose performance consisted of 
gracefully slow movements accompanied by the 
familiar Malayan posturing, in which arms and 
hands and shoulders figure prominently. They 
were quite as skilled as any I had ever seen, and 
in addition were more attractively costumed. 
They wore short little jackets of red and yellow silk 
falling just below the breasts, while fastened upon 
their sarongs at the waist were the old Malayan 
silver buckles of exquisite workmanship, now so 
rare. Some of the men and women among the 
spectators had jackets and scarfs, but mostly they 
wore simply the skirt-like sarong of the country, 
which on the men is held at the waist and on the 
women is carried up to the breast. 

I had come unheralded into the settlement, 
passed from an English-speaking Kling gharry 



144 THE TROTTING RHINO 

driver to the Malay who on horse and by canoe had 
brought me finally to the kampong. In a general 
way the kampong knew what I wanted, but it 
was not easy to organize a party for the trip I 
wished to make toward the eastern coast, as the 
Malays care little for hunting and rarely go of 
their own volition, except where a tiger has per- 
haps become a menace to a settlement, in which 
case they set up a spring gun or wait for him at his 
drinking hole or set boys up the trees to drop 
spears on him. Yet this spirit of indifference is 
a question of distaste for vigorous bodily effort 
and not one of cowardice, for really the Malay 
regards life lightly, as his history proves. But he 
does not care for sport that requires hard work, 
though he is very fond of horse racing and occa- 
sionally organizes animal fights. He does a little 
fencing with that favorite and somewhat famous 
weapon of his, the kris, though it was always a 
crude art and rarely is seen nowadays. There was 
also another fencing game in which the tumbuk 
lada— the Malayan dagger, with narrow eight-inch 
blade and much decorated handle— plays a part; 
but neither showed much skill and the fencers * 
energy was spent chiefly in jumping about and in 
posturing. Nothing of this kind of play would be 
relied upon, I fancy, for serious work with either 
weapon. The Malay also does little canoe racing. 



OP KELANTAN 145 

Tet where his heart is in it, he does not hesitate 
at any amount of physical exertion; the energy 
expended in the all-night dancing and playing 
during the few days I spent at the kampong would 
have lasted out an ordinary hunting trip. 

I was lucky enough on my first day to fall in 
with a smart young Malay named Nagh Awang, 
who in addition to being very good looking, could 
also speak a few broken words of English, and 
within two days he had agreed to come with me as 
general factotum. It took time and patience and 
much sign talk for us to get on common ground, 
but when we had attained to a thorough under- 
standing, Nagh was of great service, and after a 
few days I succeeded in getting together my party, 
which consisted of five Malays beside Nagh, a 
Chinese cook and two Tamils. None had guns but 
myself, but all had parangs— the long bladed 
jungle knife which every Malay carries. Three 
of my Malays were from Sumatra, and the China- 
man, who proved one of the most faithful of the 
lot before the long trip was at an end, was known 
by the rather mirth-provoking name of Bun Bin 
Sum. Nagh, though born on the Peninsula, was 
also of Sumatra, his people being, in fact, of the 
war-like Achinese, which in earlier years had 
raided the Peninsula ; and after we became better 

acquainted he told me, with amusing gusto, that 
10 



146 THE TROTTING RHINO 

his brother had been killed a few months before 
while in the sanguinary midst of a spectacular 
period of amok* which had extended over two days 
and resulted in the death of two men, three women 
and two children. 

Nagh held to the Sumatran style of Malayan 
costume, wearing trousers with a sarong wound 
about his waist and a handkerchief bound about 
his head. He never went forth without a hand- 
somely carved ivory handled tumbuk lada stuck 
in his sarong at the waist, and a Chinese oiled- 
paper red parasol, with which he protected his 
head from the sun. He was something of a swell 
in his own circle and quite one of the prominent 
young men of the kampong, if not of the district. 
He lived with his old and rather distinguished 
looking father, who was the Datoh— as the head 
man of the settlement is called— and indulged in 
the luxury of a personal servant— who, by the way, 
he took along on the trip, and who, also by the way, 
really became my servant as well, for Nagh did no 
work for me that he could pass over to his own 
servant. 

* Amuck is a corruption of the Malay word amok, as is also 
rattan a corruption of the Malay word rotan. Amok is a species 
of temporary insanity, which takes form in a homicidal mania. 
The development and attack are sudden and simultaneous, the 
deranged at once assaults with whatever weapon may be in reach 
whoever is in sight, regardless of age or sex, friends or strangers, 
and keeps up the attack until overpowered. 



OF KELANTAN 147 

It is somewhat indicative of the primitive needs 
and exigencies of the unattended traveller in an 
unknown land with whose speech he is not famil- 
iar, to reprint from my note book the stock of 
Malay words with which I set out from this kam- 
pong. These were: jalan, go on; nanti dahula, 
wait a little; banyak chukup, too much; pidang, 
get away; berapa batu, how far? berhenti, stop; 
lekas, fast; perlahan, perldhan, slow; balle, go 
back; charrie, look for. Association with Nagh 
improved both his English and my Malay. 

My plan included going up the river a little dis- 
tance to another small settlement— where we could 
secure packing baskets and two or three Sakais 
carriers, who knew the jungle trails— and then to 
work our way through the jungle across into 
Trengganu to one of the head-water branches of 
the Kelantan River. If we chanced on a worth 
while trail we intended to cross into the top of 
Pahang, and finally follow down the valley between 
the Kelantan and the mountains to the west, and 
so to the river's mouth on the east coast of the 
Peninsula, where dense forest, mostly uninhabited, 
and a sandy shore bordering the China Sea made 
it very different and easier going than on the 
muddy fore shore and tangled jungle of the west 
coast. Kelantan and Trengganu, together with 
Keda and Patani are the " unprotected " or native 



148 THE TROTTING RHINO 

States and form the upper part of the Malay Pe- 
ninsula between lower Siam and the protected 
States. There were no roads for us to follow, and 
off the rivers no other way of penetrating the 
Malayan jungle, the densest on earth, than over 
the narrow footpaths used by the natives. And 
it must be a great saving of distance when the 
Malay takes to the jungle, for he much prefers to 
paddle. 

We made pretty fair time along the rivers, but 
in the jungle we averaged not much more than two 
miles an hour. The footing was muddy and slip- 
pery, though the carriers had not more than about 
sixty pounds each in the long packing basket 
which, strapped on their backs, extended from 
above their heads quite to their hips. I took no 
tent, and our supplies consisted chiefly of rice and 
maize and roasted leaves of the coffee bush, from 
which a kind of tea is made that the Malayans use 
often in preference to the berry ; and we lived on 
yams, maize, rice, and a very toothsome curry 
made from the tender shoots of the bamboo. The 
Malays also ate several kinds of roots and leaves 
which they gathered in the jungle ; some of which 
I must say were really palatable. Now and then 
we had fish. In trying to get one trophy with good 
tusks, I shot several wild pigs, and you should 
have seen the eyes of Bun Bin Sum moisten in 



OF KELANTAN 149 

anticipation of the feast he and I were to have— 
for of course my Islam party would have none of 
it, would not in fact stay in its presence. Antici- 
pation really constituted the feast, however, for 
the pig was rather stringy and without the usual 
delicate porcine flavor. Bun relished the heads 
which he roasted and devoured amid gurgles of 
supreme content. "Whenever we came to a settle- 
ment, as we did several times along the rivers, we 
stopped for sociability sake and to learn of rhino 
or seladang, or gather any information that might 
be serviceable. But we heard only of deer and 
pigs and the only things we saw while on the rivers 
that might be considered in the light of game were 
several crocodiles and a large water lizard. We 
heard no tales of villages raided or men carried 
off or knocked out of their canoes by crocodiles, 
and though they are dangerous and will carry off 
a small child or a dog if caught unawares, or will 
attack a woman on occasion, yet many of the 
stories told of this hideous amphibian are greatly 
overdrawn. I noted that the Malays were always 
cautious in approaching the densely covered edges 
of the stream, but they appeared to have no fear 
of sitting in their canoes or of their camp being 
invaded. 

Making our way across the country we often 
came upon comparatively open stretches, where 



150 THE TROTTING KHINO 

wild flowers in reds and yellows grew in profusion. 
It seems more than a coincidence that, so far as 
my experience goes, very generally throughout the 
Far East the wild flowers run mostly to reds and 
yellows ; that the brilliant bird plumage is chiefly 
yellowy and reds and blues ; and that in the colors 
of their sarongs, in their ornaments and in their 
wearing apparel, the natives affect almost exclu- 
sively blues and yellows and reds. It is a fitting 
harmony. 

Very often we heard the little deer (C. muntjac), 
plentiful throughout the Far East, which when 
started barks much like a small dog and skulks 
along with hind quarters higher than its shoulders. 
I already had a head, so did not shoot on any of 
the many opportunities offered. But I did bring 
down a sambar, the common deer of all India and 
the Malay Peninsula, which measured three feet 
eight inches at the shoulders and had a nice head 
with six long points. Three times we found sela- 
dang tracks, and as many times followed them 
without success. And whenever we returned from 
a hunt, successful or otherwise, Nagh had a rather 
pleasing habit of placing a wild flower over one 
ear, the flower facing front r where he wore it 
until he sought his bed. He told me it was an old 
custom of Sumatra. 

One day when we had halted at a small river 




THE MALAYAN WOMAN OF THE COUNTRY. 
Who wears the same skirt-like garment, called sarong, as the men, only she folds it above her breasts. 



OF KELANTAN 151 

kampong Nagh brought into my presence an oldish. 
Malay, who he said had marked down a rhino 
— 'twas not specified whether its ears were tas- 
selated or no— which, the old Malay assured 
me, I could certainly get if I would sit up on a 
platform near by a drinking hole where the rhino 
visited every night. I took no stock in the scheme, 
because, as hardly a day passed without rain, my 
hunter's, if not my common, sense told me that 
water must be too plentiful in the country to neces- 
sitate regular or even occasional visits to a water 
hole by a rhino or any other animal. Also I fan- 
cied Nagh perhaps wanted a holiday at the little 
settlement of a few houses where I had observed 
a couple of good-looking Malay girls. But as the 
plan offered a new experience in rhino hunting, 
and as I am always seeking to acquire experience 
—and knowledge— I went off with the old man 
some five miles into the jungle, where about twenty 
feet from a mud hole, which obviously was a rhino 
wallow and drinking pool in dry weather, we 
erected a bamboo structure with its platform eight 
feet above the ground. 

I have put in more uncomfortable nights than 
that one ; but not many. I had not brought a mos- 
quito netting, of course, and without it the pests 
were almost unendurable. And they seemed to 
like the citronella oil with which I smeared every 



152 THE TKOTTING RHINO 

inch of exposed skin in the delusion that it would 
drive them away. The night was as dark as pitch ; 
I could not see the end of my rifle— could scarcely 
see my hand before my face. Had a herd of 
rhinos visited the hole I could only have shot at 
the noise. And there we sat, stiff and silent, with 
ears alert and eyes staring into the surrounding 
blackness until they ached. The only real excite- 
ment of the night came when the corner of my 
end of the platform gave way and dumped me 
on my back in the mud below somewhat to my 
amazement, and to the terror of the old man, whom 
I could hear in the darkness above muttering 
Malay, of which I only understood the anguished 
tone. Perhaps, really, he was cursing me; which 
was wasted effort, too, for I had left little undone 
in that direction myself. 

No rhino came, of course; equally, of course, 
no sitting up on platforms should ever be done on 
a starless night. However, it was an experience, 
and an interesting one, for unless you have sat 
with awakened ears all night in the jungle you 
can never know of the myriads of creeping, crawl- 
ing things the earth supports. Returning in the 
morning to the kampong I saw and killed a reddish 
snake, about the size of my finger and nearly four 
feet long, as it ran on the top of the coarse grass 
at a level . with my shoulder. It is a rather 



OF KELANTAN 153 

curious fact, by the way, that although there are 
nine varieties of poisonous and about twelve va- 
rieties of non-poisonous snakes in Malaya, I saw 
but two during months of hunting— the red one 
just mentioned and a python I killed in Sumatra, 
which measured over twelve feet in length. 
Snakes are abundant enough, only they get out 
of your way in the thick, dank jungle-cover; 
where the undergrowth is dry and less dense, as in 
some parts of India, the snake may not so readily 
escape unnoticed; and the danger of being struck 
is correspondingly greater, for the attack of a ser- 
pent is more frequently defensive than offensive. 
I should advise the wearing of heavy leather leg- 
gins in dry, snake-infested countries ; and remem- 
ber that always a snake strikes downwards, and 
therefore only a very large one, which would be 
seen, could land on you above the knee. If ever 
you are struck the force of the blow will surprise 
you; at least that was my sensation when for the 
first time a rattler hit me just above the ankle ; it 
was like the sharp, quick blow of the hand. 

In the hilly country encountered crossing into 
Trengganu we made even slower travel, on account 
of the mud and rain, but barring leeches and mos- 
quitoes the nights were comfortable enough, for 
the camps we built of bamboo and attap leaves and 
palms were rain proof and comparatively dry. 



154 THE TROTTING RHINO 

Such are the sole materials of which most Malay 
houses are inexpensively and durably constructed. 
One kind of attap lasts only three or four years, 
but there is another good for ten, and a kind of 
palm is frequently used which has a stalk of two 
or three feet in height and a leaf from six to ten 
feet in length, and three to four feet wide at its 
broadest. All of it is to be had everywhere for the 
cutting. Often I have seen native huts made 
almost entirely of three or four of these leaves, 
and they are very largely used by the Sakais and 
the Semangs, who, living on the south and north 
of the Perak River, respectively, are all that re- 
main of the aborigines of the Malay Peninsula. 
One tree in the jungle of unfailing interest to me 
had its but standing high above the ground, some- 
times as much as six feet, more frequently half 
that, supported by its roots, which formed a kind 
of fantastic pedestal before touching the earth, 
where they stretched in all directions over and into 
the surrounding soil. It was as though a giant 
hand had pulled up the tree and stood it upon its 
roots; at times the roots near the tree base grew 
into great flat buttresses. A very doleful sound 
in this hill country was the monotonous cry of a 
bird, called, at Singapore, the night jar, which 
began at dusk and lasted almost without cessation 
until dawn, when the insect buzz opened. The 



OF KELANTAN 155 

awakening of beetle and general insect life in the 
hill country of the tropics is a startling first expe- 
rience. It begins with one particularly loose 
jointed, crackling beetle, followed by the creaking 
tree and the squeaking bush and ground insects 
until there arises a buzzing, and a humming, and 
a vibrant, confusing whole, not unlike the song of 
the looms and the shuttles of a cotton mill. 

Yet this was altogether the most pleasing coun- 
try I had seen in Malaya up to that time. Here 
and there the forest was comparatively free of 
the progress-checking thorn-covered bushes, and 
stretches of more or less open country accentuated 
the jungle edges, where one tree sent its umbrella- 
like top far above its surrounding neighbors. 
Always and everywhere was a rank growth of 
grass, called lalang, at its coarsest. And in such 
places animal and bird life abounded, compara- 
tively speaking, of course, for nothing living really 
" abounds " in the Malayan jungle except leeches. 
There were no birds of especially brilliant plumage 
or a song note which impressed me ; I did have the 
luck to see a white-winged jay and several oppor- 
tunities of which I did not avail myself of again 
shooting the larger sambar deer; and scarcely a 
day passed that we did not hear the barking deer. 

One noon after we had crossed the mountains 
and were skirting the jungle hills which make 



156 THE TROTTING RHINO 

through southern Trenggana toward Pahang, 
Nagh sighted three seladangs in the lalang of a 
little gully that ran into the hill range along which 
we were travelling, and brought the news half a 
mile back to where I sat among our camp para- 
phernalia mending a shirt, that had been torn 
almost completely off my back by an encounter 
with a thorn bush. Following Nagh's back track 
we came to .where I could see the cattle in the 
lalang, but the grass was so high that it left only 
a few inches of the top shoulder of the one nearest 
me as a very indifferent target. There was no way 
of improving my position, however ; in. fact, I had 
the best one possible, and being happy to have any 
view of these animals whose trails I had so often 
followed without success, I placed two lead-pointed 
balls from my 50 calibre, the only rifle I had with 
me, as rapidly as I could fire— though the sela- 
dangs were off with the first shot and my second 
was at the scarcely visible shoulder going from me 
in the swaying grass. 

I was not sure if I had wounded one, or, if so, 
whether it had gone with the others ; so I took care 
to discover that none lurked in the lalang, for I 
knew its reputation and its trick, like that of the 
Cape (African) buffalo, of lying in wait for the 
hunter, and I had no thought of being added to 
the list of Malay sportsmen killed by a charging 



OP KELANTAN 157 

and wounded seladang. Eeconnoitring the grass, 
therefore, with caution and thoroughness, I found 
the tracks, where they led up the hillside into the 
jungle, and took up the single one which I assumed 
to be that of the bull's that I proposed to follow 
whether I had hit him or another. I moved for- 
ward cautiously, for the seladang is as uncertain 
as he is dangerous ; sometimes he will go straight 
away from the man-scent or when wounded ; again 
he will await the hunter within a mile of where he 
has winded him. When I had gained the hilltop 
where the tracks took me, I stopped and listened 
long and attentively; then following along the 
ridge on the seladang spoor, I thoroughly surveyed 
every piece of thick cover in front and at the sides, 
meanwhile taking up a position not far from a 
good-sized tree. For a couple of hours I followed 
up the tracks without hearing a sound, and then 
a barking deer, which jumped up within a few 
yards on my right, sent the rifle to shoulder in a 
hurry— but it came down as instantly as the yelp 
of a muntjac revealed the disturber. 

Another hour and the tracks took down hill, over 
another and finally into a glade of lalang and 
cane and brush. Approaching the glade I made a 
painstaking stalk entirely around it. The sela- 
dang was within. I did not dare to follow straight 
up his tracks, because .there were no trees in the 



158 THE TROTTING RHINO 

glade, and my rifle was too light to be depended on 
in case lie charged, and I had no time or oppor- 
tunity to pick my shot as one must in order, in these 
close quarters, to score on such formidable game 
with any weapon less than a double ten or eight 
bore. While I maintained my vigil at the lalang 
edge, I sent Nagh up a tree to locate, if possible, the 
quarry; but as he signed me a "no," I signalled 
him with my hands to remain up the tree to watch 
and listen. Then I completed another slow circle 
of the glade, at about the gait and much after the 
manner of a cat approaching a mouse. The sela- 
dang was still there. And by this time the after- 
noon was more than half spent. Then I heard a 
movement among the canes in the glade ; it sounded 
to me about in the middle jf the place, and Nagh's 
signal indorsed my thought; but it lasted only a 
few seconds. Evidently the beast had no imme- 
diate intention of coming out ; and I was beginning 
to want that seladang very badly. So as a prelim- 
inary to venturing into the glade, I went up a tree 
to learn the direction of the wind, if there was any, 
and to discover what I could about the character 
and shape of the glade. I found almost no air, 
and that little blowing in my face; also I saw a 
thick clump of cane standing up around a small 
tree about fifty feet from my edge of the glade, 
which altogether did not appear to be over a couple 



OF KELANTAN 159 

of hundred feet across. On the ground again I 
prepared for a stalk into the glade toward the cane 
clump, by stripping off cartridge belt, knife, field 
glasses, brandy flask, chocolate and quinine pouch 
—which together with compass, watch and water- 
tight match box, each attached to thongs, consti- 
tutes my usual and entire personal field equipment 
compactly arranged in leather accoutrements. 

Then I removed my shoes; and with four car- 
tridges in my rifle and as many more in my trouser 
pocket, began my stalk. I never made one so 
noiselessly ; and I did not allow myself to think of 
my chances if the seladang broke towards me 
before I reached the cane clump. It seemed a 
fearful distance to that clump, but finally its out- 
line was discernible ; and soon I was behind it with 
head close to the mud— the better to see through 
the brush— looking for the seladang. He was 
about forty or fifty feet beyond in a somewhat thin- 
nish part of the glade ; at first I could only make 
out his bulk, but shortly I could see, fairly dis- 
tinctly, him standing, facing obliquely, his head 
lowered, ears moving forward and back, his atti- 
tude that of the sullen, alert and determined fugi- 
tive. Obviously he had neither heard nor scented 
me. I could not shoot from behind the cane clump, 
so I crawled to the side, and then I looked long over 
the barrel to discover if any cane chanced in the 



160 THE TROTTING RHINO 

range to deflect my bullets. I did not quite know 
what was going to happen when I pulled trigger, 
but I intended to shoot as close as I knew how, and 
to keep on shooting. The shoulder shot was my 
best one, for his position rather protected the 
heart. I took the cartridges out of my pocket and 
placed them carefully at my side to have them 
within instant reach. With my first shot he 
jumped, which gave me opportunity to get one in 
behind the shoulder and to put in another in the 
same place before he disappeared in the glade and 
went smashing his way up the hill opposite. 

As Nagh had no gun I directed him to go back 
to the noon camp and bring up the party, and then 
follow on my tracks, as I intended to go after the 
seladang and camp on its trail if I did not get it 
before. Nagh returned and I went on cautiously 
—even more so than before, because now there was 
blood spoor— up one hill and down another, some- 
times around a hill, when I redoubled my caution, 
if possible, for a circling trail usually means rest 
or fight. Thus I went on, without again hearing 
the seladang, until it became too dark to track, 
when I camped. Nagh and my party did not turn 
up, so I made an attap and cane lean-to, a cane 
couch to raise me off the mud, ate some chocolate 
and turned in. Nor did any of the party put in 
appearance in the morning, but I heard a faint hail 



OF KELANTAN 161 

and answered it, and then took up the seladang 
tracks, knowing Nagh would come up with me, for 
they could trail me as fast as I was going. It was 
well into the forenoon, however, before they caught 
up ; they had been delayed by two of the carriers 
having dysentery, which necessitated stopping, re- 
packing and final camping as night set in; they 
had shouted they said, but had probably been shut 
in between hills and did not know enough to get 
up on high ground. 

It was not an hour after Nagh joined me on the 
wounded seladang tracks that, as I wormed my 
way through the jungle on the hillside, I suddenly 
discovered the beast standing stern on not more 
than sixty feet ahead of me. Working from tree 
to tree I had come finally almost ahead of him and 
little over thirty feet away, when on a sudden he 
seemed aware of my presence and direction and 
made a rush at me. My bullet struck just at the 
top of his high frontal bone, between the horns, 
tearing the skull without reaching the brain; but 
he swung off, giving me a near side-head shot ; and 
this time I reached the brain. He was a good, 
though not a big, specimen, measuring five feet ten 
and one-half inches shoulder height. It had taken 
seven bullets to bring him down ; one had pierced 
the lungs and two the shoulder blade, one went 

through the shoulder muscles, and one ranged 
11 



162 THE TROTTING RHINO 

alongside the heart. And altogether fortune 
favored me, for no one has license to venture after 
seladang with a comparatively light weapon. The 
head made a burdensome trophy, so we cached it 
in a tree, a few days later, to send back for when 
we had reached the Kelantan. 

Luck seemed to be coming my way with this, for 
three days after I had bagged the seladang we 
came into the country leading down to the Kelan- 
tan and upon rhino tracks, apparently very fresh, 
though in the mud and heat it was impossible to tell 
to an hour. We camped on these the first night 
and picked them up at daylight on the second day, 
determined to follow faster, as the rhino was trot- 
ting; always trotting, apparently. 

I told Nagh to let the camp outfit follow on leis- 
urely, but I wanted him and another to come with 
me, as I intended to move more rapidly in an en- 
deavor to get near the rhino. So we kept at as 
fast a gait as we could under the circumstances, 
which was about twice the pace we had pursued 
at any other time on our journey. But the tracks 
appeared to grow no fresher, nor the rhino to 
slacken or increase its pace ; always it trotted. 

Early in the afternoon Nagh told me that we 
were not very far from the Kelantan and were 
moving in the direction of that river, and not an 
hour later, still on the rhino tracks, we came out 



OP KELANTAN 163 

on the river bank itself. What was my dismay to 
see our rhino swimming the river, and nearly 
across. The top of its head, including its ear, 
showed, and I made the base of the latter my mark 
for three shots. Whether I scored or not I can not 
say, for the rhino was going almost straightaway— 
a little quartering— which gave me as good as no 
mark, for of course it was waste of lead to shoot 
into its big back. As the rhino got out on the bank 
it quartered a bit more as it trotted into the jungle, 
and before it disappeared I put two more 50-cal- 
ibre hardened bullets behind the shoulder, ranging 
forward. But the rhino kept on trotting ; and, for 
all my rain of lead did to stop him, he is trotting 
yet. 

I did not note if his ears were fringed. 



CHAPTER VII 
IN THE SWAMPS 

IT is full seventy miles from Tanjong Rambah 
to Tanjong Tor facing the Strait of Malacca, 
and every coastwise mile of it is mangrove swamp 
with the tide in and mud flat with the tide out. 
Long-necked, long-legged birds perch solemnly, 
grotesquely expectant, upon the scarcely sub- 
merged mangrove roots during high water, and 
range industriously for stranded fish and other 
smelling garbage things so generously exhibited at 
low water as to make profitable hunting for thou- 
sands upon thousands of winged scavengers. Be- 
hind this shimmering, bird-dotted mess, noisome 
banks of clinging mire run flatly away for one 
hundred yards or so until lost in the densely over- 
grown swamp of the jungle. Little creeks, little 
rivers, come winding out from the jungle through 
the swamps and the mud flats, making their way 
to the sea along shallow channels that are as one 
with the surroundings at high tide, but show bare 
and ugly when the tide is low. It is not a pleasing 
spectacle at best; but when the glistening, shivering 
muck stands revealed in all its nakedness, it is the 
most uninspiring bit of landscape eye ever rested 

164 



IN THE SWAMPS 165 

upon. Yet one creature finds this foul place con- 
genial. Back from tidewater, along streams with 
low, closely covered mud banks, breeds the hideous 
crocodile in numbers perhaps not excelled else- 
where in the Far East. And in the sea-washed 
bottom between the haunts of the crocodile and the 
last mangroves, the Malay fisherman, knee deep, 
explores for mussels daily ; and nightly as well, for 
it is in the " noon of the night," as the Malays 
poetically call midnight, when the tide is high and 
the moon is full, that he likes best to venture upon 
his coast waters. It is then, too, that as he paddles 
his canoe to the sea, he must keep a sharp lookout, 
for crocodiles lurk in dark turnings under the low 
banks. 

Malay coast villages offer little architectural 
variation, but a divergence in human types such as 
may not be seen elsewhere on earth. Kuala Maur, 
where I disembarked, bears no especial distinction 
in this respect ; but as I started from the town with 
Cheeta, my Tamil servant, on a ten-mile drive to 
Aboo Din, it seemed as if never outside of Singa- 
pore had I beheld so many nationalities in a single 
community. It was kaleidoscopic; it is the daily 
scene. Here lumbers a great, complaining two- 
wheeled cart drawn by sluggish-moving, humped- 
shouldered bullocks; there goes a narrow, high- 
bodied wagon pulled by a single water buffalo that 



166 IN THE SWAMPS 

moons along, switching flies from its flanks and 
chewing its cud with equal unemotion. High on 
the cart seat, perhaps on the buffalo's back, rides 
the all but unclothed Kling driver; or perhaps a 
group of them lounge under wayside shade trees, 
smoking or dozing or gambling. A Tamil woman 
carrying erect her well-formed partially draped 
figure passes silently, gracefully, laden with the 
ornaments of her class. In the side of her nose is 
fixed a silver stud as large as a nickel five-cent 
piece, from which swings a two-inch loop bearing 
several small ornaments, while from the top of 
her ear hangs another ring, twice two inches in 
diameter, weighted with dangling pendants. On 
one ankle jangle a collection of large, hollow silver 
bangles, and on one toe is a silver ring. Strad- 
dling her hip at the side, and held there by the 
mother's arm, sits a babe wearing only a necklace 
of tiny stone beads. Amid much shouting and 
good-humored confusion among the wayfarers, 
here comes a Malay syce, now whipping his gharry 
pony, now lashing out at some unoffending passing 
Chinese coolie who, under load big enough for two, 
has perhaps staggered in the way. Ever and anon 
groups of half-breed Chinese-Malay women hurry 
by in all the colors of the rainbow, chattering, 
laughing, or stand before an open shop discussing 
in high key some bit of silk or jewelry with the Ar- 



IN THE SWAMPS 167 

menian tradesman. Here are a party of Klings, 
half of them digging dirt which the other half 
gather in baskets that they carry twenty or thirty 
feet to a waiting cart. There is a jungle Malay, 
bearing a packing basket that reaches from the top 
of his head to below his waist line, who has come 
to town with cocoanuts to exchange at the Chinese 
shops for silver trinkets for his women kind, or 
maybe a sarong of finer weave than his home loom 
can make. Always the Chinese shops; and occa- 
sionally the travelling restaurant made up of one 
small box carrying charcoal fire, a second whose 
half dozen drawers contain the menu, and both 
borne on the Chinaman's shoulder, hanging from 
the ends of a bamboo pole. Dressed in European 
clothes, idly gossiping, lounges the Eurasian, son 
of a white father and an Asiatic mother, who, 
somewhat raised out of his mother's sphere, is 
rarely qualified by temperament or character to 
fit into that of his father, and thus, as a rule, lan- 
guishes unhealthily,— a hybrid of discontented 
mind and vitiated blood. 

Next to the Chinaman the most conspicuous ele- 
ment of the cosmopolitan gathering is the Indian 
chitty, or money-lender. He seems always to be 
thin and tall, his height accentuated by the caste 
costume of whitish gauze wound around his body 
and hanging somewhere between belt and knee line. 



168 IN THE SWAMPS 

The standing of these men is nothing less than 
remarkable. Their word is literally as good as 
their bond. They borrow from banking institu- 
tions without security; and if they fail honestly 
the chitty caste make good to their creditors; if 
their affairs are irregular they are driven from 
the caste and disgraced for life. 

It was while I was studying the chitties that 
I engaged Cheeta, altogether the most remark- 
able and the most useful servant I ever employed. 
Apparently there was no office, from body ser- 
vant to dhobi (washerman), which he had not 
filled, and filled creditably, regardless of caste 
traditions and restrictions. He was really in dis- 
repute among his own people for having pro- 
fessed Christianity ; but this, he informed me, did 
not disturb him, as his dearest ambition was to 
save his earnings and finally become a money- 
lender himself. I had originally picked him up 
in front of the Chitty Temple on Tank Eoad, Sing- 
apore—there is a temple for every trade or caste 
in the town— which Cheeta haunted with a view to 
picking up jobs from visiting foreigners, and, no 
doubt, in the thought of fraternizing with the caste 
to which he aspired ; though how Cheeta proposed 
breaking all the traditions of his people by going 
from one caste to another I can not say: the work- 
ings of the Oriental mind are much too intricate 




CHEETA, MY FAITHFUL TAMIL, A SERVITOR OF ONE CASTE BUT MANY FIELDS 

OF USEFULNESS., 



IN THE SWAMPS 169 

to be fathomed by the simple Occidental student. 
Whatever Cheeta 's ambitions, however, they by 
no means unfavorably influenced the discharge of 
present duty, or loyalty to his master. Indeed, 
too faithful attention to my interests was the only 
complaint I had ever to lodge against him. 

In the Far East servants are carried free on 
steamers, and for a very small fare on the rail- 
road; so it is customary on a journey to take your 
own servants, who guard your luggage and serve 
you on shipboard or at the hotel. Now Oriental 
servants as a rule are notorious thieves, and in no 
way can one show his efficiency so well as by suc- 
cessfully guarding his master's belongings against 
the predatory assaults of fellow-servants, that sleep 
always with one eye open for loot. On the first 
trip Cheeta made he served me so signally as to 
put me in dread of arrest for harboring stolen 
property. We had disembarked at Kuala Selan- 
gor, and after the night camp was made Cheeta, 
with an obvious air of complacence, led me to 
where our belongings were stored, pointing pride- 
fully to the ensemble. As an old campaigner, my 
kit is invariably reduced to a simple and practical 
working basis, without auxiliary pots or pans, or 
fancy culinary accessories. I was, therefore, 
somewhat surprised to view several strange, lux- 
urious appearing camp things, not to mention a 



170 IN THE SWAMPS 

small collection of common or garden parapher- 
nalia, which considerably enlarged my equipment. 
My first thought considered accidental mixing of 
dunnage during the voyage, my next, that Cheeta 
had been making purchases; but there was a too 
self-satisfied air about Cheeta to be explained by 
aggrandizement of such conventional character. 
To my direct question, " Are they ours?" he re- 
plied " Yes," and then " No " to my further in- 
quiries of " Did you buy them? were they given 
us?" Finally, nonplussed, I asked point blank 
where he did get them ; and then he let me under- 
stand, in his subtle way, that he had outwitted the 
other master's servants, who had tried to steal 
from my kit all the way from Singapore. 

The dressing down I gave him appeared abso- 
lutely incomprehensible to Cheeta, the only im- 
pression remaining with him being of my ingrat- 
itude in return for his ever alert efforts on my 
behalf. This was the beginning of a faithful ser- 
vice that kept me in almost constant terror lest 
he steal something and not tell me. He was the 
most inveterate and most successful thief I ever 
encountered, yet never stole from me ; though con- 
tinuously bringing me things he had stolen from 
other masters, under the very eyes of their ser- 
vants, which he exhibited with unmistakable pride 
in his cleverness, calling my attention at the same 



IN THE SWAMPS 171 

time to our own full equipment, from which none 
of the other servants had been or ever were shrewd 
enough to steal while he was on guard. Invar- 
iably he presented a most aggrieved picture when, 
after he had brought a stolen article to me, I 
threatened him with a whipping unless he told 
from whom he had stolen it, and set up a doleful 
wail always when I made him put it back. I never 
cured him, though I must say I punished him se- 
verely at times : he did not appear to care to keep 
the things he stole ; his pleasure was in outwitting 
the other servants, and having done so could not 
resist showing me the evidence, even though it 
entailed a thrashing. But I never had so compe- 
tent a servant, and it was with genuine regret I 
had eventually to leave him in a hospital ill of a 
fever he had contracted with me in the swamps, 
and from which he never recovered. 

The road we travelled upon was an excellent one, 
as all roads in English Protected Malay are, and 
led us in three hours to a little fishing village where 
lived Aboo Din, to whom I had been recommended, 
and who extended to me the hospitality of his roof, 
much to my surprise ; for the Malay is a Moham- 
medan, and a Mohammedan is not usually pleased 
to have a stranger within his gates. But the sur- 
prise was an agreeable one to me, for although the 
Malay presents the not always comforting anom- 



172 IN THE SWAMPS 

aly of dirty houses and clean persons, yet the invi- 
tation offered an exceptional opportunity for 
nearby study of the native, and I rejoiced to 
have it. 

Din was good-looking, short and stocky, well put 
together, with thick nose and lips, and straight 
black hair. He had been to Singapore a number 
of times, counted white men among his friends, 
spoke English fairly well, and was altogether an 
enlightened Malay. His menage was a very sim- 
ple yet a very interesting one, and though there 
were only four rooms I heard scarcely a sound, 
and never saw anyone but Din and two children— 
a son of seven or eight and a daughter of fifteen or 
sixteen. I question if there is a more attractive 
human thing on earth than a handsome Malay boy. 
And they remain so through their boyhood, or 
until their young manhood, at which time for a 
few lively years of pleasure-seeking they consti- 
tute the local jeunesse doree. The Malay species 
of this engaging genus of adolescence is about the 
swiftest of which I know. The little girls are not 
so handsome as the boys; but Aboo's young miss 
was almost pretty with her lighter complexion, 
small hands and feet, and an ill-concealed ever- 
present wish, constantly suppressed, to laugh and 
be gay. Her eyes were those of her brother, only 
not so luminous, but the arch of her eyebrow was 



IN THE SWAMPS 173 

patrician. I came to be good friends with these 
children before I left them; and they brought 
others until my group of little acquaintances grew 
to half a dozen; and never, I declare, have I met 
such lovable children, not even in South America. 

The girl, by the way, was instrumental in letting 
me into the secrets of sarong-making ; for one day 
she took me to an aged relative, who was weaving 
one of silk, with threads of gold and silver running 
through it, that was to be the child's gala garment 
at a festival soon coming. The old woman said 
it took a month to complete such a garment, and 
about twenty days to make the less elaborate ones. 
They are all woven of cotton or silk, or cotton and 
silk mixed, invariably a check of gay colors, and 
there is almost no house outside of the towns that 
has not its hand loom. Over the sarong the well- 
to-do women wear a looser garment, extending 
below the knees and not so low as the sarong, that 
is fastened at the front with an oval-shaped silver 
buckle four inches deep by six long. Although all 
of the same style— an oblong cloth from two to 
four feet in width and about six feet in length, 
sewn together at the ends like a bag with the bot- 
tom out— yet an ingenious twist at the waist, or 
other touch of the eternal feminine gives the 
sarong individual distinction. 

Aboo Din seemed thoroughly to enjoy the frank 



174 IN THE SWAMPS 

pleasure I took in his children and told me much 
of child life, of folklore, and of the many Malay 
superstitions. He was a good talker, as most 
Malays are, and in common with his countrymen 
loved to gossip ; there was not much of the social 
history of that little settlement I did not hear 
before we set out for the swamps in the jungle. 
Being well-to-do he indulged himself in fads, 
two— cock-fighting and highly ornamented krises. 
Also he had some fine pieces— betel-nut boxes 
chiefly— of old Malay silver exquisitely carved, 
and now so hard to get. He organized several 
cock fights while I was with him, and although his 
collection was small it was not lacking in quality. 
He had also just bought a race pony, which he was 
training with a view to entering the holiday races 
at Singapore; for, next to his betel-nut and his 
women, the Malay dearly loves the speculative op- 
portunities of a horse race. 

But the up-country Malay of the old school 
cherishes most his kris, as the dagger with wavy 
or straight twelve-inch blade is called. There was 
a day, not so long gone, when the kris bore no value 
until baptism in human blood made it worthy to 
pass on to succeeding generations with its story 
enshrined in family tradition. To-day, with all 
Malay at peace, it has lost such significance, though 
remaining a much prized possession and heirloom, 



IN THE SWAMPS 175 

according to its intrinsic value. It may have a 
wood or buffalo horn handle, plain, or carved in 
the fanciful designs of which Malay workmen are 
past masters; or the handle may be of ivory, of 
silver, or even of gold, chased and studded with 
jewels. Etiquette prescribes that the kris be worn 
at the left side, unobtrusively sheathed in the 
sarong, with the handle pointing in to the body; 
the turning out of the handle and the exposure of 
the kris indicates unfriendliness. Whatever the 
composition of its handle, however, the blade of 
the first-class kris is only of one and the best qual- 
ity, fashioned of splendid Celebes iron, tempered 
ceremoniously and decorated punctiliously with 
water lines. These lines, which give the impres- 
sion of inlaid silver, are the result of a process 
said to be secret ; but Din told me they were made 
by leaving the blade, covered by a thin coating of 
wax, for several days in a mixture of sulphur and 
salt, and then cleaning it with arsenic and lime- 
juice. How near this is to the truth I know not; 
I give it only as Aboo Din gave it to me. 

The sheath of the kris is frequently as elaborate 
as the handle, made of a native mottled wood that 
takes a very h*igh polish, and is often additionally 
mounted in highly ornamented brass. Sometimes 
the sheath is also decorated with gold and silver 
trimmings. In the old days the famous maker of 



176 IN THE SWAMPS 

blades attained to wide celebrity; now he is pass- 
ing, almost passed indeed, and his art, like all the 
splendid native arts the world over, is being re- 
placed by unpleasing, if practical, articles of civili- 
zation—civilization, destroyer of the picturesque 
and of the natural art instinct in the individual. 

When Din learned that the real object of my 
coming into his country was to hunt wild pig, all 
his good humor vanished, for, to the Mohammedan, 
pig is an animal abhorrent. We had already made 
several successful deer hunts, for which purpose 
he kept an assortment of dogs and enjoyed quite 
a local reputation; but he would have nothing 
whatever to do with my proposed hunt for boar; 
he would not even hire me his dogs. At least such 
was his attitude at first, but after a day or so his 
natural good humor and the lessons of Singapore 
asserted themselves, and he showed a more recep- 
tive mind to my proposition. At just this psycho- 
logical moment word came from a neighboring 
kampong of crocodiles terrorizing the people ; and 
it was not very long before I had closed a bargain 
with Aboo Din that, if I would go with him into 
the swamps and help slaughter crocodiles for his 
people, he, in return, would organize my pig hunt. 
So with that mutual understanding we started off 
next morning with twenty men and a dozen dogs. 

Curiously, the Malay is no hunter of the croco- 



IN THE SWAMPS 177 

dile, and it is only when one has carried off a 
child or a dog, or takes up its abode too near a vil- 
lage for the comfort of the inhabitants, that he 
organizes to kill. 'Twas on such an occasion that 
I happened now. For six or seven miles we 
skirted the jungle, across the mangrove swamps 
and the mud flats, before we came to a small collec- 
tion of houses elevated upon piles along the banks 
of a sluggish stream. Here we pitched camp. 

Shooting crocodiles is no sport; you sit in the 
bow of a canoe, rifle at hand, while two men paddle 
silently forward until you sight a dark, olive green, 
loglike thing on the mud. The " thing " is not 
so inanimate as it looks. Perhaps you have mo- 
mentary sight of a yellowish patch, the under side 
of its throat, as it moves off ; and then you fire and 
paddle with all speed to where the creature was; 
was, I repeat, for nine times out of ten past tense 
is the proper one. You may see a few spots of 
blood to indicate you have scored, but rarely is a 
crocodile killed instantly, and otherwise it is not 
secured. No matter how severely wounded, it 
finds its way into the river to die and sink, or to 
fall prey to other crocodiles. Of about a dozen I 
wounded to the death, I secured only one, and that 
because I was able to approach within ten yards, 
and, with my lead-pointed ball mushrooming, 
drilled the disgusting reptile through and through. 
12 



178 IN THE SWAMPS 

The Malays had a more certain way of securing 
the quarry. Their means was a bamboo raft, two 
and a half feet square which carried an upright 
two-foot pole flying a small bit of rag. To the 
under side of the raft was attached about fifteen to 
twenty yards of stout line, ending in three feet 
of chain, a couple of feet of wire, and a stout 
barbed hook, to which was made fast a live fowl 
and a small section of hollow bamboo to counter- 
balance the weight of the chain and float the bait. 
Set adrift in the river, it was not long, as a rule, 
before a squawk and a splash announced the bait 
taken. Violent agitation of the raft followed 
upon the disappearance of the fowl ; sometimes it 
momentarily disappeared from view as the hooked 
amphibian went ahead full steam, but always the 
little flag came bedraggled to the surface, and after 
a while remained stationary as the crocodile stayed 
his progress in an effort to disentangle himself 
from the bait. By this time the hook had taken 
firm hold, and it became simply a question of put- 
ting a boy on the bank or on a canoe to watch the 
flag on the raft. By and by at their leisure the 
Malays would haul the crocodile ashore and mur- 
der it. Aboo Din seemed an artist in this method 
of catching crocodile, and always two or three of 
his flags fluttered on the river. Except for the 
satisfaction of killing the dangerous things, I can 



IN THE SWAMPS 179 

not say I enjoyed the game; there is no sport in 
shooting lead into something you do not get, and 
when you do get it the reptile is so repulsive as 
to destroy all the joy of its pursuit. Therefore I 
was well content when Aboo Din announced that 
crocodiles had been butchered in sufficient num- 
bers to quiet the fears of the residents and he was 
ready to take me inland for wild pig. 

Per contra, no sport in the world is more thor- 
oughly enjoyable than boar-hunting, or pig-stick- 
ing as it is done in India ; for this is the pluckiest 
brute on earth. No beast has more courage than 
he; in fact, an old wild boar knows no fear; not 
even of a tiger. The wild boar never loses his 
head— or his heart; such bravery I have never 
beheld in any four-footed creature. He has all the 
cunning commonly accredited to the devil, and in 
his rage is a demon that will charge anything of 
any size. I have seen a small boar work his way 
through a pack of dogs ; and his smaller brother, 
the peccary, in Brazil, send a man up a tree and 
keep him there. The boar looks ungainly, but the 
Indian species is fleet as a horse for about three 
quarters of a mile. He begins with flight, shifts 
to cunning, and finally stands to the fight with 
magnificent valor, facing any odds. As, riding 
upon him, you are about to plant your spear, he 
will dart— " jink," as they call it in India— to one 



180 IN THE SWAMPS 

side, repeating the performance several times, 
until he finds he can not shake you, when, turning 
suddenly with ears cocked and eyes glittering, he 
will charge furiously. If not squarely met with a 
well aimed and firmly held spear, he will upset 
both horse and rider. Hurling himself again and 
again against the surrounding spears, he will keep 
up his charge until killed, when he dies without a 
groan. There is no animal like him; and truly is 
he entitled to the honors of the chase in Indian 
and in European countries where he abounds. 
The true home of the wild boar (Sus cristatus and 
S. scrofa) is India and Europe— France, Ger- 
many, Russia, Spain, Austria. Smaller and less 
formidable species of him are found in Hawaii, in 
the South Sea and in the East Indian Islands ; and 
in South America, Mexico and Texas, where he 
is much smaller and known as the peccary. The 
average shoulder height of a good specimen of In- 
dian boar is twenty-nine to thirty-two inches, the 
tusk length four to six inches, and the weight two 
hundred and fifty to three hundred pounds; 
although in the Tent Club I heard of boars killed 
that had tipped the scales at six hundred— but that 
story came late in the evening. The other East 
Indian varieties, the babirusa excepted, will not 
average within one hundred pounds of the Indian, 
and the peccaries are even smaller, probably fifty 



IN THE SWAMPS 181 

pounds lighter. Boar-hunting as sport attains to 
its highest excellence in India, where it is as bad 
form to shoot a boar as, in England, it is to shoot 
a fox; in fact it is the law of the land that none 
may be shot within forty miles of ridable ground. 
Elsewhere, because of unridable country, or from 
tradition, the boar is shot, and, having expe- 
rience of both, I can say that boar-shooting is to 
pig-sticking as pot is to flight bird shooting. 
The peccaries differ little; the Mexican, called 
" javalinas," have the more pig-like head; the 
Texan are the smallest. Some sport is to be had 
chasing peccaries in Texas, where, in small herds, 
they keep ahead of the horses and dogs for a short 
exhilarating burst of a couple of hundred yards, 
when they tire and come to bay. But Texas pec- 
cary hunting is not more serious than good fun, 
although the pig is pugnacious and valiant. A 
strong fighting dog can alone kill a peccary; and 
there never was a dog which, single-handed, could 
live through a finish fight with an Indian boar. 
The Brazilian peccaries are the heaviest, travel in 
herds of considerable numbers, and have more en- 
durance and more fighting blood. 

Beating pigs up on foot to shoot them as they 
rush from one patch of jungle into another has 
its exciting moments, and its risks are of no trivial 
order if you are called on to sustain a charge. I 



182 IN THE SWAMPS 

found this method in Brazil more sport than riding 
after them behind dogs in Mexico or in Texas, but 
it was much better still in Malay, where the pigs 
are larger and the cover dense and variously occu- 
pied. Indeed a fascinating feature of pig-hunting 
in Malay entirely peculiar to the Peninsula is the 
uncertainty of what kind of animal may burst 
from the jungle ahead of the beaters. It may be 
anything from a mouse deer to a tiger. 

Pig-sticking would be impossible in Malay. 
Primeval forest of great, smooth tree trunks rise 
straight into the air fifty or sixty feet before 
sending out their canopy tops that scarcely permit 
sunlight to sift through. Far below grows a tan- 
gled mass of palms, ferns and small trees bound 
together by rattan, cane and climbing vines of such 
strength and profusion that the adventurer may 
advance only by frequent use of the knife. Water- 
soaked by the shoulder-high, dripping, coarse 
grass and torn by multitudinous thorn-armed 
bushes, he cuts his way slowly, even painfully. 
Needless to say such country is not ridable. 
Where agriculture has made its demand this jun- 
gle has been cleared, and tapioca, coffee, rice, pine- 
apples and every tropical thing flourishes in luxu- 
riant abundance ; and when, as happens, land has 
been abandoned, a secondary growth of shrubs and 
small trees, and high coarse grass, lalang, speedily 




THE WILD BOAR AND HIS PUGNACIOUS COUSINS. 



i. Texas Peccary. 4. Indian pig, Malay, Sus cristatus. 

2. Babarussa. ' 5. Mexican Peccary. 

3. Wild pig of Borneo, Sus barbatus. 6. Collared Peccary. 

7. Wild boar, Sus scrofa. 



IN THE SWAMPS 183 

covers all signs of attempted reclamation. On the 
edges of such country are favorite ranges for wild 
pig, which, after feeding at night, find here the thick 
scrub near soft ground, where they can wallow 
and lie up during the day. Thus in Malay hunting 
boar becomes a matter of beating them out of these 
thick jungle patches, and the native dogs, though 
serviceable after deer for which the Malays train 
them, lack the courage needed to dislodge a stub- 
born or pugnacious boar. English residents have 
experimented quite a bit in breeding for a good 
dog; but nothing very notable has evolved, and 
the most dependable one seems to be got by cross- 
ing a pariah (mongrel) bitch with an imported 
harrier. 

As a collection of mongrels, the dogs Aboo Din 
got together for our pig hunt were unbeatable ; as 
a pig pack they were untrained and fickle, though 
not useless— for running deer, however, they had 
quite a reputation. 

For a greater part of four days' travel inland 
from the coast we moved through ankle-deep 
swamp and multitudes of sago and cocoanut palms y 
seeing now and then on higher, dryer ground the 
traveller, most beautiful of all the smaller palms. 
Insects were troublesome, not to mention the omni- 
present leech, and the heat very oppressive, espe- 
cially in the close-growing lalang; yet the sur- 



184 IN THE SWAMPS 

roundings of the swamp land were different from 
any I had seen elsewhere on the Peninsula, and 
therefore extremely interesting. We were wring- 
ing wet most of the time, for nearly always, as we 
made way through the swamp to reach higher 
ground beyond, we walked through the densest of 
dripping jungle. Once and again we passed a de- 
serted plantation, the last signs of agricultural ac- 
tivity fast disappearing under the engulfing jungle 
growth ; and on the sixth day, at noon, we came to 
a large tapioca farm, where I lunched deliciously 
on the refreshing milk of a freshly gathered cocoa- 
nut and the roasted sweet-potato-like roots of the 
tapioca, with bananas and papayas plucked near 
by. Here was our pig-hunting ground and here 
we remained a week, averaging about two drives 
a day. 

Although it was bunglingly done, I enjoyed no 
hunting experience in Malay more than this. We 
were always ready for our first drive about six 
O'clock in the morning. The beaters and the dogs, 
making a wide detour around a patch of jungle pre- 
viously agreed upon, would enter it from the far 
side, while I took position on the opposite side in the 
open places where the pigs were likely to come out 
—though they did not always perform as expected, 
sometimes running around and around within the 
jungle patch, in defiance of both dogs and men. 



IN THE SWAMPS 185 

The jungle patches were never of great size, so I 
could hear the beaters almost from their first shout 
on entering the cover. Such a racket and such a 
crew! for the beaters were as motley as the dogs. 
They included Chinamen, Klings, Tamils, Japa- 
nese, a few Malays, all of them naked except for 
a small breech-clout. Every man had a parang 
(jungle knife) swung at his waist; half of them 
had empty, five-gallon kerosene cans, with which 
Aboo Din had provided them on the coast. From 
the moment they entered the far side of the cover 
until they emerged on my side they hammered 
these cans incessantly, shouting and yelling and at 
the same time threshing the jungle on all sides with 
bamboo sticks. Such a confusion of shrieking 
man and crashing cans and yelping dogs I never 
heard. As they came closer the noise became an 
indescribable babel. There was never a day that 
did not result in pigs ; they had to flee before that 
bedlam, though none had tusks longer than a 
couple of inches. It was a question of snap shoot- 
ing as they popped out of one patch of jungle into 
another; and was, I must say, rather good fun, 
especially when the charge of two wounded ones 
rather stirred things up a bit. 

But Aboo Din all the time maintained a dignified 
aloofness. 



CHAPTER VIII 
IN THE EYE OP DAY 

The Lost Seladang of Noa Anak. 

NOT in many places on the globe is early 
morning so entrancing as in up-country 
Malay. The coolish, faintly stirring air, the dark, 
fragrant forests, the rakishly topped cocoanut 
palm, and the gracefully disheveled bamboo sil- 
houetted against a grayish sky, compose a picture 
of beauty and of inspiration as rare to the tropics 
as it is fleeting— for with sunup comes sultry heat, 
enervating everywhere, but on the plains intol- 
erable. Always there is the eternal green of the 
hills and the shifting, moisture-laden clouds that 
pour daily benefaction upon the respondent, luxu- 
riant growth below. And in all Malay nowhere 
are the mornings so attractive as in Jelebu town, 
with its natural setting choice as that of an Orien- 
tal gem. Jelebu district is jungle and primeval 
forest running up hill and down dale over to the 
higher ground, locally called " mountains," which 
divide the State of Negri Sembilan from Selangor. 
But Jelebu town is valleys of heavily laden, bril- 
liantly colored, padi fields, and isolated hillocks, 

186 



IN THE EYE OF DAY 187 

thickly timbered to their very tops, that make the 
settlement a checker-board of mounts and vales, 
and blues and greens. On top one of these hills, 
its foundation hacked out of the enveloping jungle, 
was the bungalow of Walter Scott, overlooking the 
valleys and the little group of town houses, and 
the firm reddish road connecting Jelebu with the 
outside world. Scott was the British Resident, as 
the local governing official is called, at the time of 
my visit, and a fine specimen of that clear-eyed, 
upstanding, intelligent class of young men whose 
common sense and uncorrupted rule have been the 
upbuilding of British Malaya. It is worth a jour- 
ney around the Peninsula, if only to see the type 
of young men whom England calls out to help her 
solve Malay problems; and to see the type is to 
understand why England's colonial government is 
so eminently successful. Scattered throughout the 
British protected States of the Peninsula, a few 
to each State, in residence widely separated, these 
young Englishmen stand for the best interests of 
their country and the fair treatment of the natives. 
I had met Scott at Seramban, just at the foot 
of the hill from the range which runs north 
through the State, after a journey from the coast 
through coffee and tapioca plantations; and we 
joined forces for the gharry drive to Jelebu. The 
gharry is the travelling cart of Malay. It is a 



188 IN THE EYE OF DAY 

nondescript, two-wheeled, uncomfortable kind of 
vehicle, with scarcely room enough for two, and a 
seat placed so low as to cramp one's legs most un- 
comfortably. The ponies are small but tough, and 
for the greater number are brought from Java, 
whence also comes the professional syce, as the 
driver is called ; the best of these syces come from 
Boyan, an island off Java, where, curiously 
enough, there are no horses. In action the syce 
sits on the gharry floor with legs dangling over the 
shaft, from which point of vantage he maintains 
a constant drubbing of the pony. For the larger 
share of the day's hours the pony merits vigorous 
attention; for the rest he accepts the driver's devo- 
tion to strenuous duty with indifference. Like the 
cayuse that has become accustomed to the drum- 
ming heels of its Mexican rider, the Malay pony 
views the unflagging lash as a settled habit of his 
syce, to be humored or ignored according to the 
quality of the road. Yet it is surprising what 
loads these little beasts will drag and the miles 
they will cover in a day, because of their own 
sturdy legs and, to no inconsiderable extent, on 
account of the fine, hard, well kept, terra cotta col- 
ored road which winds through the jungle, up hill 
and down, connecting the chief settlements of the 
protected States of Malay. The roadways are not 
numerous, but their quality is unexcelled. 



IN THE EYE OF DAY 189 

For two days Scott and I travelled over such a 
road, winding around hills, through vistas of trop- 
ical scenery soft and indescribably beautiful; 
along avenues of palms (most impressive being 
the travellers' palm with its eighteen inch wide 
blade) ; under the full power of the sun, whose 
blazing glory awoke to iridescence the multitude 
of varying green which reached to the horizon on 
every hand. We were travelling in the open eye 
of day, and the natural beauty of Malay, so often 
shrouded in rain, stood revealed to me as never 
before. It was a scene to enrapture the most blase 
traveller. Only occasionally are the wonderful 
and ravishing mysteries of the jungle exposed by 
Nature's search light, and the human eye must be 
swift and retentive, for a glimpse of such tropical 
beauty is rare and evanescent. 

Amid this tropical gorgeousness and with three 
relays of ponies, for the grade of the road was 
severe and our load heavy, we came in the night 
of the second day to Jelebu— typical of the smaller 
British residencies. Besides Scott, there were 
exactly two other white men within a day's jour- 
ney of his bungalow, yet Jelebu had its club, and 
its bulletin board on which every day was posted 
the most important cable news of the world. Here 
at the very jungle's edge might one keep pace with 
the fluctuations of the stock market or learn the 



190 IN THE EYE OF DAY 

most recent rumor concerning Russia's Indian 
ambitions. 

Jelebu is 'the governmental centre for all that 
part of Negri Sembilan lying above north latitude 
3° where it touches the States of Pahang and Se- 
langor on the west. In common with all the Pe- 
ninsular federated or protected States, it has a 
native sultan acting under the advice and sugges- 
tion of the British Resident, who, in Jelebu, is 
paid five hundred silver dollars a month ; which is 
a good bit more than the Resident receives. What 
the Sultan is given by the government and what 
the Sultan saves for his own personal net income, 
however, are two different and widely separated 
amounts. The dependents of a Malay chieftain 
are many, and he must maintain himself and his 
household of women in liberal style as to retinue 
and entertainment; to do this in accordance with 
native tradition leaves the Sultan no over boun- 
tiful remainder of his seemingly large honorarium. 
Were his income, however, twice the really liberal 
fee now given him by the government for serving 
as figure head, the net result would be no greater ; 
the Malay is no economist. The Resident is a kind 
of paternal chief justice, magistrate and legal ad- 
viser combined; he is well taken care of by his 

7 «/ 

government, and thoroughly respected, sometimes 
even liked, by the natives. Ordinarily his official 



IN THE EYE OF DAY 191 

life runs smoothly day by day along its monoto- 
nous course ; for Malay is at peace and industrious. 
But as the durian ripens his days grow strenuous 
with throbbing life; the padi field is neglected, 
peace is broken, and the Resident becomes a peri- 
patetic Lord High Chancellor, whose waking hours 
are filled with civil suits, and whose nights are 
made sleepless by the howlings of quarrelling men. 
For be it known that the durian is the wondrous 
fruit that brings great joy or the madness of con- 
flict upon those that taste of its passion-stirring 
flavor. Had the original apple been a durian, Eve 
never would have saved a bite for Adam— and 
man been spared the time-honored and sneering 
accusation of laying the blame for his fall upon 
tempting woman. 

My introduction to the durian was character- 
istic. It came early in the morning after my ar- 
rival at Jelebu. Strolling contentedly around 
Scott's hilltop, enjoying the view and the fra- 
grance of foliage under the first sun rays, I was 
startled by hair raising shrieks as though the 
victim were being boiled in oil or undergoing tor- 
ture equally agonizing. Hastening to the scene of 
commotion I came upon an enlivening fight that 
had been waged all over a padi field but, at the 
moment of my approach, was being finished at a 
corner fence, through which the vanquished com- 



192 IN THE EYE OF DAY 

batant, uttering his blood-curdling yells, sought to 
escape the fury of blows that the other rained upon 
him with a club of male bamboo big enough and 
stout enough to fell a bullock. Pieces of durian 
scattered over the battle-ground told the cause of 
the fight; the clubbed had stolen the fruit from 
the clubbee and been caught, and, in the terms of 
local popular approval, been " reprimanded "-—so 
thoroughly reprimanded, in fact, that he was car- 
ried home and did not emerge again from his house 
for several weeks. Meanwhile the victor who had 
come out of the affray pretty severely marked 
also, received the congratulations of his friends 
and an increased sale for his durians. 

It was at the height of the durian season, when 
all animal kind in Malay, two-legged and four- 
legged, is animated by an insatiable lust for the 
fruit itself, and quick to fill with savage anger 
against whatever stands in the way of satisfying 
its appetite; for not the least remarkable quality 
of this remarkable fruit is the amatory effect it 
has upon those who consume it. All durian-eating 
Malays— man and beast— are aflame with erotic 
fire. The jungle resounds with the fighting of 
love-lorn brutes, and the towns awaken to court- 
ship and indulgence. 

The durian is about the size of a pineapple, with 
a similarly rough, outside covering armed with 



IN THE EYE OF DAY 193 

half -inch spikes which are tough and sharp. It 
grows on trees fully sixty feet in height whose 
trunks are bare of limbs except at the very top, and 
when the fruit ripens it drops to the ground. So, 
as the season approaches, natives erect small huts 
under the tree or nearby, from which they watch 
for the falling fruit. Those who are fortunate 
enough to have such trees growing on their own 
land, practically live on the income derived from 
the sale of the durian, for in the Peninsular mar- 
ket it brings the highest price of any Eastern fruit. 
In the jungle edge, where these trees have no own- 
ership, the race to build the first hut, and thus 
establish proprietary interest in the falling fruit, 
is equal in intensity to an Oklahoma land rush; 
and in the jungle the natives must compete also 
with the wild beasts that share man's fondness for 
this extraordinary fruit. Once, in the jungle, as 
I sat smoking, puzzling out some lost seladang 
tracks, a falling durian attracted my attention ; the 
nearby trees seemed alive with monkeys racing to 
reach the ground first. One monkey, that had 
been left at the post, so to say, deliberately dove 
from the top of the tree where he sat, fully forty 
feet into the top of a smaller tree below, whence 
he swung to the ground; but, though he beat out 
the others the durian had disappeared. A small 
leopard-like creature had sneaked off the fruit, 

13 



194 IN THE EYE OF DAY 

and I was too much absorbed in watching the 
aerial flight of the monkey to get more than a 
glimpse of the thief. The troop of monkeys that 
instantly foregathered discussed the situation 
loudly and in very obvious anger. 

In order to keep away the birds and the beasts 
which search out this intoxicating fruit, the na- 
tives, in the jungle near the durian trees, erect 
large wooden clappers and other noise-making 
instruments, which they operate by rope from 
their watch-houses, sometimes elevated on high 
poles. This rope is also a jungle product and 
amazingly strong and durable. Braided into 
varying sizes, from string to hawser, it is made of 
a black fibre which grows around the trunk of a 
certain kind of plentiful palm that blossoms once 
in a lifetime and then dies. I have seen this fibre 
rope serving as anchor cables on small Malayan 
coastwise steamers. 

No world fruit is coveted so inordinately, or 
consumed with such greed as this durian; nor is 
there any to compare with its extraordinary flavor 
and odor. A small cartload of durians will an- 
nounce themselves long before seen, and, in hand, 
its odor, at least to white nostrils, at first is pecu- 
liarly offensive. I have never heard or read an 
adequate description of either flavor or odor. 



IN THE EYE OF DAY 195 

As in the case of the rattle of the rattlesnake, it is 
impossible to find fitting words for it. 

Although the shell is very tough, yet the fruit 
opens easily from the stem to disclose its centre 
divided into orange-like sections or pods, each 
having several seeds about the size of a marble. 
Around these seeds is the fruit, a cream-colored, 
cream-like substance, of a flavor which simply 
baffles description. If the meat of a banana were 
squashed and mixed with an equal quantity of rich 
cream, a smaller quantity of chocolate, and enough 
garlic to stamp strongly the whole, the result 
would be, it seems to me, about the nearest ap- 
proach to the consistency and combination of tastes 
afforded by the durian. At the same time its flavor 
is extremely delicate and rich, and its odor power- 
ful. They say the durian is an acquired taste- 
certainly so for the European ; but after overcom- 
ing your repugnance to the odor, which is so strong 
you can literally taste it, you become very fond of 
the fruit. I survived the odor long enough to eat 
a portion and tasted it for three days afterwards. 
Somehow I never tried another. 

To me the attraction of Jelebu was not as a cen- 
tre of durian activity, but its reported nearness to 
seladang and elephant, and particularly to the sela- 
dang, that most formidable member of the great 
Bos family. From the nearly extinct American 



196 IN THE EYE OF DAY 

bison to the passing Chillingham wild cattle of Eu- 
rope, on to the buffalo of India and of Africa, and 
the anoa of Celebes— smallest of buffaloes— the ox 
family ranges wide and populous. And of this 
very large family, certainly the Far Eastern mem- 
bers are the most interesting. The gaur, gayal 
and banting form a group showing common dis- 
tinctive features of horns more or less flattened, 
tail reaching only a little below the hock, and a dis- 
tinct ridge running from shoulders to the middle 
of the back, where it ends in a sharp drop. In 
mature males, the color of the short, fine hair is 
dark brown or blackish, but the young of both 
sexes, and the female banting of all ages, are red- 
dish brown. The gaur is distinguished by the high 
arched frontal bone between the borns, which in 
the gayal is straight and flat; the banting is the 
smallest, its horns more rounded and the ridge on 
its back less developed. Of the three, of all Orien- 
tal wild cattle in fact, the gaur is the largest and 
by far the most formidable; is in fact one of the 
most formidable beasts of the earth which the hun- 
ter can stalk, and one that will on occasion supply 
all the excitement the most intrepid sportsman 
might desire. They stand higher than any other 
of the oxen family, and are of heavier bone, though 
the shoulder blade is small for an animal of such 
size— another disadvantage for the hunter. The 




THE LARGE AXD FORMIDABLE ORIKNTAL WILD CATTLE FAMILY 



i. The Seladang, Bos gaurus. 

2. The Anoa of Celebes, Bos depressicomis. Con- 

necting link between the ox and the antelope. 
Height, 3 ft. 3 in. 

3. The Yak, Bos grunnieus. Tibet and Kashmir. 

5 ft. 6 in. high. 

4. I'anting, Bos sondaicus. Sumatra, Java, Borneo, 

Burma. 5 ft. to 5 ft. 9 in. 

5. Indian Buffalo, Bos bubalus. 5 ft. to 6 ft. at 

shoulder. 

6. Small Buffalo peculiar to the island of Mindoro 



of the Philippine group, Bos mittdorensis. 
Height at shoulder, 3 ft. 6 in. 

7. African (Cape) Buffalo, Bos caffer. 4 ft. 10 to 5 

ft. at shoulder. 

8. Gayal, Bos frontalis. Burma, Assam. Smaller 

model of Gaur. 

9. Chillingham Bull, half wild cattle of Europe. 

10. Gaur, Bos gaurus, or Indian Bison, known in 

Malay as the Seladang. Miscalled Bison — 
Oriental wild cattle. 

11. European Wild Cattle. Extinct aurochs. 

12. The Congo Buffalo, Bos pumilus. 



IN THE EYE OF DAY 197 

blade goes well up into the shoulder, its top being 
within about four inches of the highest point of 
the back ridge. Therefore a shot should be sent 
home just over the leg, a little forward rather 
than back, and within six to eight inches from the 
top of the shoulder ridge. 

Called bison (incorrectly) in India, seladang in 
Malaya, siang in Burma, and gnudang in Siam, 
the gaur (Bos gaurus) is the largest and fiercest 
of all the wild cattle, with hoofs small in propor- 
tion to its height, and of deer-like, rather than ox- 
like, character. Its sense of smell is as acute as 
that of the elephant and its vision much keener. 
When you seek one of these cattle you need all 
your hunter's skill and your nerve; for, next to 
the elephant and bracketed with the Cape buffalo 
of Africa, I believe its natural temperament and 
the character of country in which it is found make 
the seladang in the Malay Peninsula the most for- 
midable quarry* on earth. In India, where the 
range of the gaur is the hilly, wooded districts, 
they are more apt to be found in herds of some size, 
and, because of the more open sections, less difficult 
of approach; less dangerous to the hunter than 
in the Malay Peninsula, where the jungle is the 
densest that grows, and almost invariably the 
quarry has the man at a disadvantage. In Malay 
it is snap shooting, where the game, on being 



198 IN THE EYE OF DAY 

wounded, turns hunter, and, concealed, awaits the 
sportsman, who must approach with infinite cau- 
tion, with senses always alert and hand ever ready, 
if he would stop or turn aside the vicious charge. 
You may never in this jungle survey the field of 
operations from some vantage point; but in the 
close growing tangle of vines, and canes, and thorn 
bushes, and heavy coarse weed or grass-like mass 
—through which you can never get even dim sight 
for over twenty yards and most of the time can 
scarcely see that many feet ahead— you must fol- 
low the tracks of the seladang you have wounded, 
never knowing at what instant the maddened beast 
may burst from the jungle practically right on top 
of you. One seladang I was fortunate enough 
finally to get, was only just the other side of a 
bamboo clump when he started his charge full at 
me. This is the dangerous and the unavoidable 
feature of hunting the beast in Malay. Luckily 
for the hunter, the seladang, if unsuccessful in its 
charge, passes on to await him at another point. 
Never have I heard of one turning instantly to 
a second charge after missing the hunter on the 
first rush. But, on the other hand, if the seladang 
charges home, it remains to gore its victim. 

So it is, because of the temper of the seladang 
and of the kind of the country he roams, that in 
Malay the heavy rifle is the only safe one. Sela- 



IN THE EYE OF DAY 199 

dang have been killed with comparative small bore 
weapons— I was fortunate enough to kill one with 
a 50 calibre— but it is also true that the late Cap- 
tain Syres, one of the most experienced sportsmen 
among English residents of Malay, was killed by 
the charge of a seladang, after he and his com- 
panion had put six .577 balls into the beast. As 
he lay wounded to the death Captain Syres charged 
his companion never to go into the Malayan jungle 
for seladang with any weapon lighter than an 
8 bore; and though perhaps that is erring on the 
safe side, certainly if error is to be made the safe 
side is the one which wisdom would choose. In a 
sense this is true of all shooting in the dense jun- 
gles of the Par East, which do not afford the more 
or less open stretches of India or the plains of 
Africa. Dangerous game is apt to come at you 
from such near points, and the kind of shooting 
demanded is so much of the snap work variety, that 
picking your shot, as a rule, is impossible. You 
must have a gun that will stop, or at least turn 
aside, the infuriated charging animal; and in the 
case of seladang it is your life or his. Therefore 
you must have smashing, sickening power in your 
cartridge, not merely penetration. And when you 
are tracking a wounded seladang, look well that 
you do not become entangled in the vines and the 
clinging growths of many descriptions that en- 



200 IN THE EYE OF DAY 

compass your way. Keep your feet clear, ready 
for instant movement, and have always a tree in 
your path and in your eye, for lightning quick 
shelter in case there is not the time or the oppor- 
tunity for a shot when the charge comes. 

There is record of a seladang killed that stood 
six feet seven and a half inches at its shoulders; 
but the average would be from about five feet ten 
or eleven inches, to six feet. Of four I personally 
measured the tallest was five feet eleven inches, 
the smallest five feet eight inches ; and the biggest 
head of which I found any record had horns with 
a twenty and three-quarter inch base circumfer- 
ence, with a spread of eighteen and three-quarter 
inches from tip to tip, and forty-three inches as 
the outside length of horn, and thirty-five and a 
half inches as the inside length from base to tip. 
Yet these are unusual and extreme measurements ; 
and sixteen to eighteen inches is more nearly the 
average base circumference, with a corresponding 
fewer number of inches on the other measurements. 

Before we set out from Jelebu for our hunt, we 
tried very hard to get Prang Doloh, who lived at 
the edge of the jungle, and was commonly reported 
to have, for a Malay, unusual hunting qualifica- 
tions; but we were obliged to content ourselves 
with Noa Anak, another native of higher social 
degree but, as we discovered, less jungle craft. 



IN THE EYE OP DAY 201 

None the less we set off with considerable enthu- 
siasm, because reports of elephants which I did not 
want, and of seladang, which I did desire, were 
arriving plentifully. Every day one or more na- 
tives would come in to the official residence with a 
woful tale of padi destroyed by mischievous ele- 
phants ; and Noa declared he knew where a small 
herd of seladang ranged which so often he had seen 
that now, he assured us, he could find them with his 
eyes shut for the " eminent Resident and his dis- 
tinguished friend." 

One wants the happy unreasoning confidence of 
childhood to thoroughly enjoy Malay. 

When we set out to find Noa's seladang, our 
outfit of provisions was sent ahead in the pictur- 
esque Malay draught cart, with our party of 
eight under Noa leading the way, and Scott and I 
following in a comfortless gharry, which we dis- 
missed at the jungle edge in favor of shank's mare. 

As to nationalities, our party was something of 
a mixture, including Malays, Tamils and China- 
men ; but as to quality it was, with a single excep- 
tion, uniform and useless to an exasperating degree. 
Indeed it was notable in its very uselessness; to 
have got together seven men so bootless on a hunt- 
ing expedition, was in itself an achievement worthy 
of record. The exception was Lum Yet, a Hok- 
kien Chinaman, who had been engaged as cook, but 



202 IN THE EYE OP DAY 

who in truth was a jack of all useful trades in 
camp, and a porter on the road, that trudged pa- 
tiently and good naturedly under a heavy load 
whenever we moved camp, as we did frequently. 
The only thing Linn and I clashed over was the 
simplicity of his cooking kit. I am myself some- 
thing of a Spartan as to camp dunnage ; my equip- 
ment is never luxurious, being always reduced to 
a strictly practical working basis,; yet mine was an 
elaborate culinary outfit compared to that which 
served Lum. So far as ever I could see, it con- 
sisted of two pots and a fry pan. He would not 
use separate pots, making the coffee or a curry in 
the same one with equal facility, and I must hon- 
estly add without any apparent tainting of either 
dish ; but I had to draw the line when I found him 
one day boiling a kind of a pudding concoction 
in one end of his loin cloth. And he was the most 
devout individual of any color I ever knew. There 
was never an undertaking for which he did not 
bespeak assistance from his gods; and we never 
made a camp that he did not raise a crude little 
altar, nearby in the jungle, as merit making. Lum 
Yet had a brother whose pig had been carried off 
by a tiger, and Lum never lost an opportunity, 
during the entire trip to supplicate the mysterious 
one of the jungle that his own pig, in a shanty near 
his brother's, might not suffer a similar fate. He 



IN THE EYE OP DAY 203 

was always up pottering over his duties when 
Scott and I turned in at night ; and I never opened 
my eyes in the morning that I did not see Lum 
already at work, seemingly just where he had been 
when I closed my eyes the night before. Many 
and many a morning I lay watching the swift dex- 
terity, the economical use of every trifle, the infi- 
nite industry, the mysterious mannerisms and 
devout supplications. 

How little the white man, especially the major- 
ity of those of us who go forth as missionaries to 
" convert the heathen," comprehend the Chinese 
character ! To the student of Chinese institutions 
and the Chinese themselves, it seems outrageous 
presumption, for the truth is that the Chinese are 
without doubt the most religious people on the 
globe. Their religion is a very part of themselves, 
accepted without discussion from birth. The 
veriest pauper, from a worldly point of view, who 
lives on one of the hundreds of sampans floating 
before Canton, will deny himself in order that he 
may perform a particular religious duty. There 
are no people save the Mohammedans that so com- 
pletely live up to the faith they profess. China has 
no divergent churches, no wrangling apostles ; there 
is the one creed, of thousands of years' standing, 
to which all yield allegiance, and to which all pin 
a faith that continues unto death incontrovertible. 



204 IN THE EYE OP DAY 

Now and again we hear of a " converted " China- 
man; but I never saw one that had really broken 
from the faith of his fathers who was not the less 
trustworthy. In a considerable experience with 
many kinds of natives in the wilderness of their 
own country, I have invariably found the ones 
farthest from " civilization " and the " convert- 
ing " influence of conflicting white man creeds, to 
be the most honorable and dependable. I mean 
this as no unkindly reflection upon the Christian 
faith or upon the zeal, often so ignorantly directed, 
of many good people. 

Nao Anak's spirits underwent a decided change 
so soon as we had penetrated the edge and got into 
the real jungle. Up to this he had been blithe and 
gay— the strutting leader of the party and ob- 
viously glad of it; now he grew less talkative and 
appeared depressed. Neither Scott nor I gave 
him much thought; we presumed he was taking 
us to the place where so often he had seen the sela- 
dang, and meanwhile, I, at least, was greatly inter- 
ested in the country through which we were pass- 
ing. It was much more open jungle than any I 
had yet travelled, with many hills and small val- 
leys or swales in which grew big patches of very 
coarse lalang as high as our heads, and bearing 
blades an inch wide. Hence for the first days we 
were more in the open under the sun, " eye of 



IN THE EYE OF DAY 205 

day "— as the Malays poetically call it— than had 
been usual in my previous hunting and, though it 
was oppressively hot, yet I enjoyed the chance of 
the closer observation it gave of bird and insect 
life. Neither, however, on more intimate ac- 
quaintance, proved a sufficient reward for the dis- 
comforts and heat. Bird life in the Peninsula 
is not brilliant as to plumage nor entertaining as 
to song; indeed, it is sombre and curiously silent. 
Flying insect life also is entirely without the won- 
derful colorings seen in some tropical countries— 
Brazil, for example— but it is plentiful, and 
though it fails to attract the eye at least it salutes 
the ear, even if not pleasingly. It is vibrant with 
noise; there is a continuous hum, somewhat les- 
sened during the rain, but swelling into a roar 
when the sun bursts forth between shifting clouds. 
Monkeys almost rivalled the insects in number and 
variety, and one, the wa wa, or singing gibbon, 
common to most of the East Indies, made noise 
even more insistent, his wail of a cry reaching high 
and doleful above all other jungle sounds. About 
the only bird note of which I seem to have made 
record is the familiar one of our old friend the poot- 
poot bird, heard so often in Sumatra and particu- 
larly in Siam. But the most interesting sight in 
the bird line was a black jungle fowl with red mark- 
ings, though just how marked I can not particu- 



206 IN THE EYE OP DAY 

larize, for it was but a flash of a glimpse I had, 
and counted myself fortunate indeed for that 
much, as the jungle fowl are rarely seen. 

By and by when we passed through the more 
open zone with its life, and had come into the dark 
and dank interior with only leeches visible, I began 
to take some account of Noa. There was no doubt 
of his depression, but to our inquiries concerning 
the seladang he always replied confidently that we 
were making towards them and would see " plenty 
in a few days." To be sure we did see tracks, not 
so fresh as to suggest quarry at the next rise, but 
sufficiently so to at least indicate their presence in 
the neighborhood. Thus we went on day by day, 
getting wetter and wetter if possible— for once 
wet in the jungle interior you stay so— but with no 
fresher signs of the game we sought. One noon 
we came unexpectedly upon a little open flat, com- 
paratively dry, where we stopped with mutual 
congratulations on stumbling over a place to dry 
our clothes. Here during this process we sat 
nearby, unclothed amidst the torments of myriads 
of sand flies. We both remarked upon the unusual 
experience of sand flies in such an environment; 
but our remarks would scarcely do for publication. 
Malay holds many surprises for the wilderness 
hunter. 

With an occasional camp from which to scour 




9 I 



IN THE EYE OP DAY 207 

the surrounding country for tracks, we headed for 
the mountains across the border in Selangor; 
climbing most of the time, coming every now and 
then to little flats of lalang, winding around high 
hills and across small streams, of which there were 
a number with excellent water. The jungle was 
thick, yet without the multiplicity of briars and 
thorned things I had found elsewhere in the Penin- 
sula. We saw plenty of fresh deer and pig tracks, 
and one day, as we sat on the bank of a stream 
eating luncheon, a large sambar buck, carrying a 
fine head, came out at our very side, and, after 
looking us over an instant, plunged across stream 
directly in front of us. Our guns were stacked 
some feet away— but we did not want the deer; 
meat we carried and each of us had long before 
secured a head. 

There were also elephant tracks; but thus far 
no seladang tracks fresher than the ones first seen, 
and even these were becoming fewer. As the 
country itself grew to interest me less I came to 
take closer note of Noa Anak, and it was not long 
before I became convinced that not only was he 
without knowledge of a seladang range, but he was 
entirely without bearings as to our own precise 
location— plainly lost, in other words. Scott 
doubted this at first, but finally agreed with me, 
and we then took Noa aside, so the others might 



208 IN THE EYE OP DAY 

not know and his pride suffer humiliation, and 
had a heart-to-heart talk with him. He would not 
acknowledge himself lost, but he did confess that 
he seemed unable to find the range where he had 
" heard " of seladang in plenty; thus we learned 
out in the jungle that he had only heard of the 
seladang which so definitely and so often he had 
said in Jelebu that he had " seen." 

It was a situation to which mere words would 
not do justice— days of tramping under the direc- 
tion of a man who did not know where he was 
going. Only the purest accident would have 
brought us to seladang, and such accidents do not 
often happen. Travelling by the sun, to see which 
we had at times to climb a tall tree standing above 
the jungle growth, we turned our steps towards 
Jelebu— always keeping an eye out for the quarry 
we sought, but losing no time in reaching a place 
where our conscience would permit us to point Noa 
for his home. 

We had scarcely a hope now of seeing seladang 
—and we were not disappointed, for very soon we 
ran out even of their tracks. Diligent searching 
brought us no results, and we had finally to return 
to Scott's bungalow after a fruitless, but inter- 
esting, search for Noa's lost seladang. 



CHAPTER IX 
JIN ABU FINDS AN ELEPHANT 

AS the crow flies, it is about two hundred and 
jfX, fifty miles from the mouth of the Siak River, 
on the east coast of Sumatra, to the low mountain 
range which runs along the extreme western shore 
from northwest to southeast. But in Sumatra you 
do not journey as the crow flies. Until you reach 
the foothills trans-inland travel is impossible; 
therefore you follow the rivers, of which there are 
many, and tortuous. By the time I got to the 
higher ground where I hunted, I had gone over 
four hundred miles, and just about boxed the com- 
pass en route. 

Inland fifty miles on the river of the same name 
is Siak, metropolis of the middle east coast and 
military headquarters of the Dutch, in whose 
hands rests the future of this potentially rich, 
though untravelled and undeveloped East India 
island. Officially, Siak for one mile covers both 
banks of the river, but literally there are no more 
residents than could find easy elbow room in a 
few acres. Politically, the left bank is Holland, 
the right Sumatra. On one side are the house of 

14 209 



210 JIN ABU FINDS 

the Dutch Governor, or Controller, the jail, the 
barracks for the Dutch local army, which consist 
largely of native soldiers, and the quarters of the 
Dutch officers ; on the opposite side are the Sultan, 
the native host, and a few Chinese shops. 

Here I disembarked from the Hong Wan, a 
Chinese tramp steamer of low speed and high 
stench, to be greeted, in bare feet and sarong, by 
the Controller, who was most hospitable and ac- 
commodating. He insisted on taking me to his 
own house, where his pleasant-faced, good- 
humored wife made the most toothsome curry I 
have ever tasted, and promised that on the day fol- 
lowing I should be presented to the Sultan, of 
whom, he assured me, it was necessary to get per- 
mission for my visit to the interior. The day of 
my audience fell also upon the one chosen to cele- 
brate the opening of the palace which the Dutch 
Government had recently completed for him, and 
was made the occasion of a public reception and 
much hilarity through the insinuating influence of 
a Dutch cordial called " pint "—whatever that may 
be. The Controller and his staff came in full uni- 
form, but the Sultan received us in the European 
clothes he always affects on gala occasions, sup- 
ported by his full standing army (of twenty, 
officers and men), and a semicircle of brass-tray- 
bearing natives among whom were distributed the 



AN ELEPHANT 211 

royal betel-nut box, spittoon, cigarettes, tumbuk 
lada,* kris and spear. The Sultan was a rotund, 
pop-eyed little man of about thirty-five, with a 
mania for bestowing royal favors or orders and 
a penchant for hanging brass chains upon his 
waistcoat, and binding diamond-studded decora- 
tions about his instep. At his feet, on the floor, 
sat two coffee-colored sons of eight and ten years 
—one of whom must have been by a favorite wife, 
for he was dazzling in purple velvet trimmed with 
gold braid ; and each lad wore bracelets and anklets 
and was loaded with brass chains and covered by 
shining medals, which, for the most part suggested 
dismembered tin cups, teapots, and soda-water 
bottle stoppers. The photographs I made of the 
Sultan in all his glory, together with other expo- 
sure and hunting trophies, were subsequently lost 
on one of the several occasions my skilled water- 
men upset our canoes in descending the up-country 
rivers. 

I was detained in an antechamber while this im- 
posing spectacle arranged itself in the audience 
hall for my particular amazement; and if I was 
not amazed— at least I was amused. His August 
Majesty received me most graciously, as befitted a 
potentate of his quality; and after offering me a 
very bad cigarette, generously granted permission 

* Small kris, corresponding to dagger. 



212 JIN ABU FINDS 

for me to hunt the interior country, which he in- 
fluenced not at all, and of which he knew nothing, 
provided I presented him one tusk of every ele- 
phant I shot. Sovereignty over the interior, 
where none venture, not even the Dutch, is a little 
pleasantry with which the Controller tickles the 
amour propre of the Sultan and that of the com- 
manding general of his standing army. But the 
Dutch pay well for their little joke; they give the 
Sultan $16,000 (silver) a month, which enables 
his Royal Highness periodically to enrich Singa- 
pore shopkeepers ; and to hang more brass chains 
on his waistcoats than he ever dreamed could be 
found in all the world— before the Dutch came to 
Siak. 

A bundle of red tape enveloped my preparations 
for the trip. The Dutch do not hunt; no other 
white man had visited that section ; and the natives 
have neither liking nor skill for the game. So 
there was a great how-to-do before I got away. 
First, the pow-wow with the Sultan; then, at his 
instigation, consultations with many old natives, 
who had never strayed from the waterway thor- 
oughfares; and finally a formal dinner given by 
the Controller, that his staff en masse might give 
me the benefit of their advice, which, considering 
that the most daring among them had never gone 
fifty miles from the fort towards the interior, was 



AN ELEPHANT 213 

of course very valuable. The Controller meant 
well and during my stay treated me with the utmost 
kindness and consideration— for which he shall 
always hold a warm spot in my heart— but the sum 
and substance of the rare information which this 
two weeks of dining and " pinting " and pow- 
wowing developed, was that, at the foot of the 
range over towards the eastern coast, elephants 
were said to be plentiful, and if I " just followed 
the rivers " branch by branch in that direction, 
etc., etc., " until I could get no farther," I should 
be well on towards the elephant country; simple 
directions surely. 

And so we set out. 

My outfit, gathered after days of persuasion and 
hours of consultation with the Sultan, consisted of 
a sampan, a beamy type of rowboat common to the 
Asiatic coast from Yokohama to Calcutta, a six- 
paddle dug-out, two Chinamen, and four Malays. 
I had no interpreter— not even the Sultan could 
lay hands upon one. The provisions (rice, coffee, 
flour, salt and fish) and the Chinamen were in the 
sampan; and the four Malays and I were in the 
dug-out. When it was impossible to camp on the 
river banks, as most usually it was, four of us 
slept in the sampan, the other three in the dug-out ; 
and when it rained, as it did for a great share of 
the time, I rigged a palm-leaf covering over the 



214 JIN ABU FINDS 

sampan and there spent my days as well as my 
nights. 

The Chinamen were of just the ordinary patient, 
stolid, plodding John type; but the Malays, so I 
was given to understand, were distinguished gen- 
tlemen, chosen by the Sultan, he informed me, as 
fitted to serve so " distinguished a traveller-hun- 
ter.'' His Majesty possessed the true Oriental 
tongue. Certainly the Malays looked the part, for 
they came to me on the morning of departure each 
attended by a bearer carrying the paraphernalia 
which goes with betel-nut chewing. Every man 
of them had at least one kris stuck inside of his 
sarong at the waist, two in addition had tumbuk 
ladas, and one carried a spear which bore an elab- 
orately chased six-inch broad silver band bound 
around the business end of the four-foot shaft. 
I had no objection to the armory, but drew the 
line on the servitors; so after an argument which 
involved us all morning, and dragged the Sultan 
from across the river, and the Controller from his 
noon nap— we headed up river with the betel-nut 
bearers of my high-born servants standing on 
the bank. 

For two weeks, always up stream, we worked 
our way from river to river, each precisely like 
the other in its garnet-colored water and palm- 
studded sides; each narrower and of swifter cur- 



AN ELEPHANT 215 

rent than the preceding one. The water we boiled, 
of course, so that it lost some of its blackness, 
though very little of its unpleasant odor and taste. 
The stronger current reduced our rate of progress 
from four to three miles an hour— but we kept at 
it from sunrise to sunset, much to the disgust of 
my aristocratic company, and so made good day's 
travelling of it. At Pakam, where we left the 
Siak, the river was fully a quarter of a mile in 
width, but the stream we turned into narrowed to 
one hundred feet within a few miles, and to sev- 
enty-five feet after a couple of days ; the next river 
was not half that width at its mouth, and much less 
where we abandoned it for another. These rivers 
were all really wider than they seemed; a species 
of palm growing a stalk two inches in diameter, 
and lifting its broad unserrated leaves six to ten 
feet above the water, flanked the river sides in 
dense growth and extended from ten to twenty 
feet in impenetrable array out from the banks. If 
you wished to get to the river bank you cut your 
way to it, but being at the bank, you found no foot- 
ing, for the ground reached back, with creepers 
and vines and trees and gigantic bushes, coming 
together in one tangled swamp land. Several 
times where I found footing I made difficult ex- 
cursions to the back country. Once I saw and 
heard the barking deer so common to all this East 



216 JIN ABU FINDS 

Indian land ; and again I saw a tiny and perfectly 
formed miniature of a deer, standing not over 
twelve to fourteen inches high at the shoulder ; the 
smallest of all the known deer species. Twice I saw 
and once killed what they call a fish tiger, which is 
of a grayish brown with black stripes, rather good- 
looking, and about the size of a small leopard ; once 
too I shot but did not get a villainous-looking croc- 
odile ; and on the day following I shot and did get a 
thirteen-foot python which unblinkingly, and stu- 
pidly, it seemed, stared at me from a low limb on 
which its head and about three feet of body rested. 
I also at the same time got the shivers with thought 
of the cold, ugly-looking, baneful thing's caress, 
had I missed the shot— for in that wilderness of 
undergrowth, running away was all but impossible. 
But for the most part I did not leave the boats- 
could not in fact— and the only human beings we 
saw were an occasional glimpse of a native in a 
dug-out, swiftly, silently stealing out from the lane 
he had hewn into the palms to reach a fish trap or 
perhaps some bit of high ground back from the 
river, where he gathered rattan to sell to the Chi- 
nese traders. Usually at every junction of rivers 
we found a little settlement of three or four houses, 
either floating at the water's edge or set full six feet 
high above the ground on stakes driven deep into 
the mud bank. 



AN ELEPHANT 217 

The natives we encountered along the rivers were 
not friendly ; nor were they unfriendly to the state 
of being offensive: they were simply indifferent 
and left us severely alone; churlish is the more 
apt adjective, and it so affected my Malays that 
they grew morose and paddled with little spirit 
and not much more strength, until by cigarettes and 
a judiciously small libation of that insinuating 
" pint " I lifted them above their uncongenial sur- 
roundings. So it was, day after day, I kept heart 
in them by bribery and amusement; one day my 
camera afforded entertainment ; another, my rifles 
and cartridges served ; again my shoes, or my note- 
book and pencils ; my pigskin case of toilet articles 
was a veritable wonder-box, and served unfailingly 
when the situation was unusually vexatious. The 
only members of my company who really found 
life satisfying were the two Chinamen; they took 
turns in smoking, and in rowing the sampan ; and 
when we stopped for any cause or for any period 
however brief, they curled up in the stern and slept 
peacefully, unconcernedly, while Malay aristoc- 
racy jabbered and gesticulated and tottered upon 
its foundation over failure to trade rice for the 
rotted fish which scented the air whenever we 
halted at a settlement. 

Always, as we worked our way up stream, mon- 
keys and birds of several varieties were to be seen 



218 JIN ABU FINDS 

and heard; and innumerable butterflies fluttered 
around the boats when we stopped near the banks. 
But it was not a cheerful chorus ; even the butter- 
flies were sombrely painted. Ever there came to 
our ears the ascending and descending cry of the 
monkey, which our scientific friends call the 
" singing gibbon," but which in its home is known 
as the wa wa. When this quaint-faced, long- 
armed creature ceased its plaintive wail, there 
came always at dusk a single mournful bird note, 
repeated continually from deep in the jungle, 
where you felt you must seek it out to stop its 
madding monotone. Even the hoarse croaking of 
the herons was a relief. Frequently by day the 
poot-poot bird, with its chestnut body, wings and 
tail, and black head and neck, gave voice to joy of 
being, and now and again I heard the bird of two 
notes, a high and a low one, which so often I had 
met while hunting in Siam, and which is commonly 
credited with warning the jungle Free People of 
man's approach. 

And thus we went along. 

One afternoon, as in the gathering dusk I tried 
to shoot, for examination, one of the great fruit- 
bats* passing overhead in swiftly moving flocks, 
we came to the tiny branch river we had been seek- 

* Pteropus medius; locally called flying fox and common to the 
East Indies. The adult's body is about twelve inches long. 



AN ELEPHANT 219 

ing these two days ; and about one hundred yards 
from its mouth found quite a little fleet of canoes 
tied up in front of several houses and a dozen or 
more natives with spears and krises in hand gath- 
ered on the bank in an obvious " state of mind." 
Paddling toward them, it really looked as if we had 
a fight on our hands; and I must say I did not 
much care, for, if the truth be told, I was exas- 
perated by the surly reception we had received all 
along from the river natives, whom I found the 
most uncivil of any I ever encountered in any fron- 
tier section. We slowed, but kept moving toward 
the land, and while yet in midstream my Malays 
sent out a hail to which those on the bank re- 
sponded; and forthwith followed much and ani- 
mated conversation between them, which seemed 
to please my Malays increasingly as it continued. 
I could not understand what information my 
Malays imparted to the natives, but I seemed to 
be the object of increasing curiosity, and, when I 
went ashore, of marked attention. My guns ap- 
peared to create great wonder, and I gathered 
from my Malays' sign talk that it was the shooting 
which had caused so much alarm in the settlement, 
and that the natives wished to see the rifle work. 
So I brought down a flying fox from out of a 
nearby tree, and then shot it dead as it lay on the 
ground with a .38 pocket revolver w 7 hich I took the 



220 JIN ABU FINDS 

precaution to always carry on my East Indian 
hunting trips. 

The amazement of that community, particu- 
larly over the revolver, and the discussion around 
the dead bat, lasted late into the night; and the 
more they talked and smoked, the more firmly es- 
tablished became the reputation of the white hun- 
ter in that simple community. They cleared out 
an end in one of the houses, to which I was es- 
corted ; and here they brought me fruit and sago ; 
and fish that once upon a time, long past, had been 
fresh. Evidently I had made a hit, for some rea- 
son or other. But I was not to be taken off my 
guard by blandishments, so I kept my guns in 
sight and my revolver in my belt; and I did not 
sleep in the house as my hosts insisted, because I 
remembered the pleasingly quiet and effective 
method Malays have of putting out of the way 
those whom they cease to love. At such a time, in 
the still of night, they visit the abode of the erst- 
while beloved, and, standing beneath his open 
rattan floor, they prod inquiringly— and strenu- 
ously—upward (after the manner of testing a 
roasting fowl), until the warm blood-trickle down 
the spear shaft signals that their dear enemy has 
been found— and stuck. 

I had no apprehension of trouble— my attitude 
was simply the cautious one I always take when 



AN ELEPHANT 221 

among unknown and not dependably friendly 
people of untravelled countries. If I am to make 
mistakes, I much prefer them to be on the side of 
safety; and then, too, I do not believe in putting 
temptation in another 's way. So I had my belong- 
ings in sight, and slept where there was but one 
avenue of approach, for I never lost sight of the 
pretty box I should be in if my disgruntled fol- 
lowers together with some of the settlement natives 
found it easy to desert me and carry off my guns. 
But though I would not sleep in the house of 
my host, I spent the evening under his roof with 
much interest in the entertainment he offered me, 
and some amusement at the airs given themselves 
by my Malays, whose hearts I now made joyous 
by handing over to them all the " too, too old " 
fish, and much of the fruit. While I smoked the 
villainous cigarettes my host offered me, and 
which out of respect to his feelings I did not re- 
fuse, the room filled with gaping natives— men 
and women. They came silently, squatting in- 
stantly and staring intently, the while chewing 
betel-nut industriously. By and by, as the evening 
wore on and curiosity wore off, some not unpleas- 
ant, weird chant-like singing arose outside, accom- 
panied by drums (two feet long by eight inches 
in diameter) played upon with the fingers. Now 
and again there came the long-sounding, not un- 



222 JIN ABU FINDS 

musical boom of the village drum— a hollowed 
tree trunk, vigorously pounded by an aged person 
whose office was considered an honored one. Later 
there came metal gongs and liquid-noted wooden 
affairs, patterned somewhat after the xylophone. 
Here, as elsewhere, I always found Malayan music 
soft, carrying to my ear melodious tones rather 
than any tune, and always pleasing. 

The house of my host, which may answer as a 
type, was built square of bamboo, raised about eight 
feet above the ground, and reached by a ladder, 
pulled up at night. The floor of the single room was 
made of rattan strung from side to side, leaving 
open spaces, through which domestic refuse was 
thrown, and housekeeping thus made easy. In 
one corner sat a woman making baskets, of which 
in a few simple patterns they are industrious 
weavers ; in another corner was a kind of box upon 
which the cooking was done in a brass pot of simple 
yet most artistic form. Around the room hung 
the crude, few belongings of the family, with com- 
pleted baskets and the everlasting and ever-smell- 
ing fish swinging from the rafters overhead. In 
appearance the Sumatra Malays differ but very 
little from those of the Malay Peninsula; what 
difference there is, is in their favor. Some of 
them affect a trouser sarong of pronounced peg- 
top variety, and others wear rimless hats that ad- 



AN ELEPHANT 223 

vertise religious pilgrimages, but for the greater 
part the natives of mainland and island are sim- 
ilar in habit, dress and looks. The food of the 
Sumatra Malay is rice, half or fully rotted fish, 
and tapioca, which with gutta percha and rattan 
constitute the native industries and articles of 
export— though the business of it is practically in 
the hands of the Chinese traders. As habitual 
among uncivilized people, the women do all the 
work. The men fish, using traps almost entirely, 
and hunt small game with strategy and desultori- 
ness; chiefly they smoke cigarettes of native to- 
bacco rolled in leaf. The men also chew tobacco 
and have the unprepossessing habit of pushing 
the large cud under their upper lip, where it hangs 
partially exposed as they talk. Both sexes of all 
ages chew the betel-nut and a few blacken their 
teeth, although the custom is not prevalent as in 
Siam, where black teeth are the rule, not to say 
the f ashioji. Another trait these peoples share in 
common is their lack of hospitality to the wayfar- 
ing stranger; time and again in both Siam and 
Sumatra I rested at a native's house without being 
offered even fruit, of which there was abundance— 
an experience differing from any had with unciv- 
ilized tribes among which I have elsewhere trav- 
elled, especially the American Indians, who have 
always divided their last shred of meat with me. 



224 JIN ABU FINDS 

There were, however, two features of Sumatran 
life which more than made amends for other short- 
comings— (1) absence of vermin on the human 
kind; and (2) scarcity of dogs at the settlements; 
and it is difficult to decide which brought the trav- 
eller the greater relief. The Sumatrans are rather 
modest, for Malays, and in some respects well man- 
nered; for example, I observed that my men in 
nearing a house invariably gave a loud and re- 
peated ahem as a signal of some one approaching. 

We had now come to the little river having its 
source in the higher country we sought, and which, 
though less than ten feet separated the up-standing 
palms guarding its two banks, was fairly deep as 
is characteristic of these Sumatran streams. Even 
had it been wide enough, the current was so strong 
as to make it impracticable to take on our sampan 
farther, so here, with its philosophic Chinese crew, 
we left it; while the four Malays and I and the 
outfit loaded into the dug-out, which, under the 
added weight, set so low as to leave only a couple 
inches of freeboard. 

They told us it was about forty miles to the head 
waters, but our five paddles plied a full ten hours 
each day of two, and must have sent the easy mov- 
ing canoe through the water four miles the hour 
for every one of the twenty, despite the current. 
Gradually, as we advanced, the palms in the river 



AN ELEPHANT 225 

grew thinner until they finally disappeared, and 
the banks, now more or less defined, and heavily 
laden with undergrowth, drew nearer us. Even- 
tually there seemed to be little or no current as 
we made our way silently, and swiftly now, through 
a dense, narrow lane, stretching crooked and dark 
before us, with arching jungle overhead. Where 
the lane opened out a bit and the stream's banks 
grew higher, we came finally to its source ; and here 
we cached the dug-out and distributed its contents 
among us; for from now we were to be our own 
pack animals, none but two-legged ones being 
known to this section. 

We had understood from the people at the mouth 
of this little river that a day's travel from its head 
waters would bring us to the house of a Malay who 
was quite a tapioca farmer and to whom, in pass- 
ing, came frequently other natives from the moun- 
tain side of Sumatra. It really proved to be a 
two and a half days' tramp, but the tiller of the 
soil was so much more good-natured than those 
we had been meeting, and gave me such an idea 
of elephants galore, that it seemed like " getting 
money from home." While we camped on his 
place for a half day, journeying natives also told 
of elephants towards the mountains. So I grew 
to feel that elephants were to be had for the mere 
going after them at any hour of the day, and found 

15 



226 JIN ABU FINDS 

myself calculating how I could get all the ivory 
into that already over- weighted canoe. I had been 
told at Siak that the interior natives were un- 
friendly to the coast natives as well as to for- 
eigners, but I never saw evidence of it. True, my 
Malays and those they met did not fall upon one 
another's necks, but they were civil to each other; 
while I personally found the interior natives more 
approachable and decidedly better mannered than 
those of the rivers. They did not strew my path 
with roses, nor put themselves to any especial 
pains to aid my search for elephant ; on the other 
hand, they added no obstacles to those already 
gathered. They had not before seen a white man, 
but they did not stand staring at me for all time ; 
they had lost no elephants, but were willing to 
enter my employ if I made it worth while— as I 
did, you may be sure ; as I had to, in order to get 
packers. 

Notwithstanding the reports— and reports are 
one thing and game quite another, in the Far East 
—as elsewhere— we searched the jungle four days, 
with the brother of the tapioca farmer as guide, 
for elephant signs, and found none sufficiently 
fresh to give encouragement. Except for being 
not quite so wet, the jungle here is something like 
that of the Malay Peninsula. In the interior and 
densest jungles of the Peninsula nearly every tree 



AN ELEPHANT 227 

is a trunk with limbs and foliage at the top only, 
while in Sumatra one finds more trees in the jungle 
with limbs below the very top, though that of the 
Peninsula is the prevailing type. One rather pe- 
culiar jungle freak I observed in Sumatra was a 
tree supporting midway down its trunk a great 
clump of earth from which were growing small 
ferns and palms— a kind of aerial swinging gar- 
den. Every tree trunk is loaded, sometimes liter- 
ally hidden, with creepers and vines, cane and 
rattan, hanging in great and manifold festoons 
from tree to tree, so that the entire forest is linked 
together. There is much less bamboo than in 
Siam. Under foot is a network of smaller cane, 
rattan and every kind of tough bush, springing 
from earth covered with decaying vegetation and 
sending out its dank fever-making odor; underly- 
ing this, a muck into which I often sank to my 
knees. 

Finally, however, there came a day toward the 
end of a week's travel when we fell on fresh 
tracks and for six hours followed them into the 
densest jungle yet encountered. Through a forest 
of huge fern-like undergrowth, standing fully 
eight feet high and so thick as to be impenetrable 
to the eye, we squirmed and twisted; and now 
there were no bird notes or monkey cries ; no sound 
of any kind save the squashing of our feet in the 



228 JIN ABU FINDS 

thick mud, which appeared to grow deeper and 
more yielding as we advanced. Nowhere were 
delicate or beautiful ferns— coarseness on all sides. 
Our common fern which grows to one and a half 
feet in height, here I saw attaining to six feet, 
with a stem over one inch thick. Now and again 
we came upon thickets of bamboo and cane torn 
up and broken down and scattered by the ele- 
phants, that are prone in sheer wantonness to ex- 
tensive destruction of this kind. Even when not 
seeking the tender shoots at the bamboo tree-tops, 
they will rip them up or ride them down, appar- 
ently for pure joy of tearing things. I have seen 
clumps of bamboo, having individual trees two to 
four inches in diameter, pulled to pieces, and 
broken and hurled all over the place, as though 
they had been straws. 

After hours of wilderness tracking such as this, 
the apparently impossible happened, and the un- 
dergrowth got denser and so difficult to get 
through that knives were in frequent use to cut a 
path. Darkness overtook us with elephant tracks 
in view, but without sight or sound of the ele- 
phants. There was a disposition in my party to 
turn back, but I insisted on camping on the tracks ; 
so camp we did. 

In the night I was startled from sleep by a 
crashing in the nearby jungle, which sounded as 



AN ELEPHANT 229 

if all the trees in Sumatra were being torn up and 
simultaneously smashed to earth. In the midnight 
jungle the noise seemed tremendous, as indeed it 
was, and right at our very ears. I must confess 
it was nerve-trying to lie quiet with that crashing 
all around and no surety that the elephants making 
it might not take a fancy to stalk in upon us, or 
what minute the fancy might possess them. Nor 
did it lend peace to the anxiety of the moment to 
realize that one elephant, much less a herd, is only 
now and again providentially stopped in his tracks 
by powder and ball; for at the base of the trunk 
and through the ear are the only places instantly 
vulnerable to your rifle bullet; the elephant's brain 
occupies a cavity not larger than ten by eleven 
inches. To have an elephant break cover imme- 
diately beside you is not so serious a matter on 
hard open ground, where you may have a good 
footing, trees, and a possibility of escape by 
dodging ; but in a jungle where you can not make 
your way except by constant use of knife, and sink 
over your ankles in muck at every step, it is quite 
another story, and one full of trouble on occasion. 

No charge is more dangerous than that of the 
wounded or infuriated elephant. 

Needless to say, sleep was impossible while the 
elephants ripped the jungle into pieces, and it was 
too black to attempt hunting ; so we lay nervously, 



230 JIN ABU FINDS 

not to say fearfully, awaiting developments, given 
now and then an extra start by shrill trumpeting 
of the elephants, which, shortly before daybreak, 
suddenly moved away— to leave all quiet once 
again. If anything is more disconcerting than the 
bugling of elephants in the still of the jungle night, 
as they inclose you in a crashing circle, I have yet 
to experience it. 

We were astir at the first streak of dawn, you 
may be sure, and within two hundred yards of our 
camp a herd had practically surrounded us. There 
was evidence in plenty of their visitation, in fact 
the jungle in their wake looked as if a Kansas hur- 
ricane had passed that way; canes were torn up, 
rattan torn down, clumps of bamboo broken and 
scattered. 

Whether the elephants had got our wind in the 
still jungle where no moving air was perceptible 
to me, or whether it was habit, a great broad path 
led through the jungle, making straight away from 
where they had been feeding. 

On these broad fresh tracks— which marked an 
easy road, to the hunter's delight, for no under- 
growth stays the elephant's huge bulk, and where 
they go no jungle knife need follow after— we fol- 
lowed for five hours before coming to any sign of 
cessation in the elephants' travel. Then it seemed 
that they had stopped for a while and scattered, 



AN ELEPHANT 231 

but careful hunting failed to disclose their where- 
abouts ; and then again we came to a many-tracked 
path where they appeared to have moved on. For 
two hours more we plodded as hurriedly as our 
packs would permit— for of course we always car- 
ried our outfit with us, that we might camp where 
we found ourselves. Even I had begun to feel, as 
we followed on doggedly, that the elephants had 
gone out of the country— for on occasion they 
travel far and rapidly when disturbed— when I 
caught sound as of a branch breaking. Stopping 
on the instant, we listened intently. There was 
the stifled breathing of wind-blown men, the suck- 
ing mud as one sought to get firmer foothold, and 
then above all came the sound of tearing branches 
we had learned to know so well the night before. 
It is almost impossible to closely estimate distance 
in the jungle ; you can not see, and in the prevailing 
hush sharp sounds come very near and loud. 

There was a slight air stirring and I now moved 
out from the tracks I had been following, that I 
might work towards the elephants up wind. But 
now we needed the jungle knife ; from tree to tree 
we slowly advanced, cutting a way with utmost 
care, even absurdly holding our breath, lest we 
warn the huge creatures of our approach. By and 
by it seemed as though the elephants must be 
within stone's throw, for the noise was at hand 



232 JIN ABU FINDS 

and had so increased that it was hard to believe 
fewer than a regiment were at work; but it was 
impossible to see twenty feet ahead. Going for- 
ward now with the care of a cat approaching a 
mouse I came onto tracks, and taking these 
crawled on my stomach, that I might move the 
more cautiously, and at the same time by getting 
low obtain something of a view ahead, however 
short. Thus drawing nearer and nearer the ele- 
phants, with every nerve alert for the experience 
of this, to me, new game, I caught my breath as I 
saw the end of an elephant trunk reach for and 
then twist off a branch. I could see no more, only 
about a foot of that trunk; I lay absolutely quiet- 
not daring to move nearer— as I was at the time 
not over fifteen to twenty feet away. Pretty soon 
I made out the middle top of its back; but I lost 
the trunk and had not yet found the head. With 
absolute precision and in perfect silence I sought 
a position which would disclose the head, for that 
was the shot I wanted. Minutes were consumed 
in these shifts, for I was making no sound what- 
ever. There came an instant when I glimpsed the 
bottom of an elephant's ear, and determined at 
once to make a chance shot at where I might cal- 
culate his head to be— for there was no knowing 
what second they might be off— and with the 
thought came a crash and a rush as of big bodies 



AN ELEPHANT 233 

hurtling through brush— and the elephants were 
gone. 

Consternation seized upon my party and they 
showed inclination to give it up ; but although ele- 
phants were new to me, hunting game was not, and 
I knew perseverance to be the power to which 
finally even ill-luck succumbs. So I started on 
and the rest followed me. The tracks now 
were scattered and led through the thickest kind 
of jungle; most of the time I wallowed in mud 
nearly up to my knees, unable to get any view 
ahead. There were no leeches, but the mosquitoes 
and sand flies and red ants made life miserable 
enough. Nets were of no avail against the on- 
slaught of the mosquitoes and the flies; while I 
crawled over the muck, they buzzed about my head 
in distracting chorus. And the steamy dank heat 
made travel all but unendurable. It was no 
child's play; I believe it seemed less endurable 
than the privations of Arctic hunting. But it is 
all in the game ; and I wanted an elephant. 

At last, after interminable wallowing, again I 
heard the elephants. It was impossible to work 
to leeward, as no perceptible wind was stirring for 
guidance. I was carrying my 50-calibre half mag- 
azine and had given my double 12-bore to one of 
my Malays whom I now motioned to follow me. 
We were still in the densest jungle, sinking over 



234 JIN ABU FINDS 

our ankles in mud at every step. Crawling on 
hands and knees for several hundred yards, I came 
finally to where I could dimly distinguish the dark 
legs of several elephants, which seemed to be stand- 
ing on higher ground than we ; but it was impos- 
sible to see clearly enough through the jungle to 
definitely locate them. My only course was to 
close in, so I continued crawling, in the hope of 
getting in position for a shot ; but again they moved 
off. Whether they had got our wind I can not say, 
though the sense of smell in the elephant is very 
highly developed. Lying there on my stomach, 
with head on the mud in an effort to peer 
through the bushes and ferns, I could hear them 
moving in the determined, persistent manner 
which means they are leaving and not feeding; 
then I saw the bushes give and sway, and the 
shadow of huge dark objects crossing directly 
ahead of me. I could distinguish absolutely 
nothing ; only I could see the place where agitated 
undergrowth told of great bodies pushing a way 
through the jungle not over twenty feet from 
me. There wasn't one chance in a hundred of my 
scoring on the invisible target, but in sheer des- 
peration I determined to take that one, and without 
looking around I motioned my Malay— whom in 
my earnest stalk I had not thought of and supposed 
to be behind me, following— to give me the 12- 



AN ELEPHANT 235 

bore; on getting no response, I turned my head 
and found I was quite alone. Then, with a hasty 
fervent wish that Providence might guide the soft- 
nose bullets, I shot twice rapidly into the bulging, 
snapping bushes— the first and only time in my 
hunting career that I ever pulled trigger without 
seeing my mark. With the reports of my rifle 
there came such a smashing of things as made that 
of the night performance sound like the faintest 
echo. The entire jungle appeared to be toppling 
on me; on apparently all sides were the swaying 
and crashing of bushes and the squashing of the 
great feet as they rushed along through the muck. 
As I crouched with my feet mired it was no com- 
forting thought that should the elephants come 
my way my chances of being trampled into the 
mud were most excellent. But they went on with- 
out my getting a view of them, and when they had 
passed I extricated myself from the mud to find 
the jungle round me literally plowed up, and in 
one place a little splotch of blood to show that at 
least luck had favored me in the direction of my 
shot. 

Returning on my back tracks, I found my 
party several hundred yards from the scene of 
action, each beside a tree. Of course expostulation 
was useless. I could not talk to them in their own 
tongue, and they did not understand mine. Ma- 



236 JIN ABU FINDS 

lays do not care for this kind of hunting. I in- 
duced them, however, to go forward to where I had 
shot, and for a while we tried to track the blood. 
But the elephants were going straight and fast, 
and the blood trail lasted only a short time; and 
then we camped. That night I was given to under- 
stand that our guide would turn back the next 
morning, and that my Malays would not go without 
him. It is rather hopeless to attempt persuasion 
in a language of which you know only a few words ; 
and all the sign talk I could bring to bear upon the 
situation was unequal to the emergency. Threats, 
cajolery, promises of presents— nothing availed; 
and the next morning we turned our faces toward 
the place from which we had set forth about a week 
before. 

On the second day of our return journey we 
found fresh tracks of two old elephants and a 
young one, and these we trailed for four hours, 
seeing plenty of old signs and plenty of new ones. 
But when the tracks indicated that the elephants 
had increased their pace, my party would go no 
farther, and again we turned back. Two days 
later we met a journeying native who had a house 
near by, and who said he knew of elephants, to 
which he promised to take me if I would give him 
as a present my rifle (the 50) in addition to wages. 
My own Malays bore an attitude of distinct disap- 



AN ELEPHANT 237 

proval, but I rather liked the looks of the new- 
comer and decided to take a chance with him. So 
leaving my party, which was to meet me at the 
tapioca farmer's house, I shouldered my pack and 
two guns and set out with the stranger, who carried 
a somewhat antique muzzle loader. It was a walk 
of a few hours before we reached a little hut on 
stilts, where we camped for the night with what I 
assumed to be his son and his son's wife and chil- 
dren. My new guide, who made me know his name 
was Jin Abu, seemed to be a good-natured old chap, 
with a deal of pride in his gun, and a multicolored 
turban, twisted into a horn, which set on one side 
of his head and gave a rakish suggestion incon- 
gruous with the remainder of his scant costume. 
He appeared to be really concerned in my hunt- 
ing, and we held long conversations, during which 
neither of us understood a word the other said. But 
I think we each got the other's spirit; it is remark- 
able how, under conditions where primal instinct 
rules, one senses what one can not learn through 
speech. All the family made a great effort to ad- 
minister to my material wants, and when I gave 
Jin a pocket knife and the son's wife a silver tical 
which I had used as a button on my coat, unmis- 
takable delight reigned in that Malay household. 
I made out during the course of the evening's 
confab that elephants were in the vicinity, and 



238 JIN ABU FINDS 

starting at sunrise the next morning Jin and I 
hunted two days, early and late, seeing abundant 
tracks, and once or twice hearing elephant, but on 
each occasion being unsuccessful in our attempt 
to approach them. All the time, though very hard 
going in heavy rain, and under disappointing 
stalks, Jin Abu maintained his good humor and 
his running conversation. He was something of a 
hunter, too, and I enjoyed my days with him as I 
did no others in Sumatra. There were evidently 
elephants in the country, for every day we saw 
signs. Once, too, I saw a tiger cat, beautifully 
marked, somewhat like that majestic cat, the great 
" stripes," and perhaps of twenty pounds weight. 
In this higher country were deer, of which I also 
saw several, but of course I did not shoot; we 
were after bigger game. We heard no more of the 
wa wa with its pitiful plaint, but saw a good-sized 
bird of a grouse species, and a racket-tailed magpie 
of attractive appearance. 

We had been following some rather fresh tracks 
all the morning of the fourth day, when we came 
up with a herd of elephants, though as usual the 
thick, high jungle prevented our viewing them. 
We crawled for quite a distance through the under- 
growth, seeking to close up, when, each of us intent 
upon his own stalk, we became separated, at just 
what point I know not, for I had gone a long way 



AN ELEPHANT 239 

before I discovered myself alone. Sneaking for- 
ward as swiftly as possible, anc). as cautiously, I 
wormed my way towards where I could hear the 
breaking branches. I had just reached the edge 
of a comparatively open piece of jungle, on the 
other side of which I could see indistinctly several 
elephants, when there came a report followed by a 
tremendous crashing, and then suddenly from out 
this space, and well to my left front, came Jin 
scrambling through the mud, minus that prideful 
turban, minus gun, and running for very dear life 
straight for the trees at the right of this oasis. 
After him, not over twenty-five feet away, at a 
gait that resembled pacing, charged an elephant 
with head held high and trunk tightly curled (not 
stretched aloft like a broom handle as often I have 
seen written), and brushing aside the jungle 
growth as though it were so much grass. As the 
elephant broke from the jungle on my left, I gave 
it both barrels of the 12-bore in back of the shoulder 
just as its foreleg came forward, which decidedly 
staggered me, but seemed to have little effect on 
the elephant, except that it trumpeted shrilly. 
Dropping the 12-bore, as there was no time to load 
it, especially with one of the ejectors out of shape, 
and swinging my 50 from my shoulder, where on a 
strap I had carried it since the day when my Malay 
deserted me, I sent a ball into the elephant's ear 



240 JIN ABU FINDS 

as he crossed in front of me, and dropped him dead. 

Meantime Jin had disappeared in the jungle, 
but shortly afterwards turned up very much 
winded and very grateful. 

I found a very slight wound over the temple 
where Jin's ball had hit. Both of my 12-bore bul- 
lets had gone home, and my 50 went clean through 
the elephant's head, in one ear and out the other 
side of the temple. The elephant measured nine 
feet four inches at the shoulder, with tusks eighteen 
inches in length. 

It was not a record trophy, but I was made 
happy by getting it ; and so was Jin Abu. 



CHAPTER X 
UDA PRANG-JUNGLE HUNTER 

UDA PRANG said I should not get a rhino 
up Kampar River way; and he came uncom- 
fortably close to telling the truth— for the rhino 
nearly got me. 

Uda always told the truth. How that came to 
be is a story by itself; and worth the telling, as you 
shall judge. It seems that Uda was really an 
Achenese, as those natives in the extreme north- 
western end of Sumatra are called, and during one 
of the conflicts which the Dutch troops and the 
Achenese have been having with more or less fre- 
quency now for a generation or so, Uda's father 
was killed, his little house destroyed, and Uda and 
his mother just escaped into the jungle with their 
lives. Here they remained in hiding for some 
days, living on roots and wild fruit, secure in the 
knowledge that no Dutchmen would follow into the 
untracked tropical wilderness. Gradually they 
worked south and toward the east shore, and one 
day, skirting the jungle edge, Uda spied an English 
coast-wise steamer lying at anchor and discharg- 
ing her cargo into a small fleet of sampans which 

16 241 



242 UDA PRANG 

the natives and some Chinamen pulled ashore, and 
then, after unloading, pulled back again for 
another load. It was an easy matter for Uda and 
his mother to be taken on a sampan out to the little 
steamer, and once there to make friends with the 
crew of Peninsular Malays, as well as with the Eu- 
ropean petty officers that had no fear of the Dutch 
in their hearts. The mother was dropped a few 
days after at a port down the coast, where kin 
folks of her late husband resided; but Uda, 
who was having his first experience aboard ship, 
had become rather fascinated by the alternative 
periods of hardest toil and uttermost ease, which 
make up the life of the East Indian coast-wise 
sailorman. The excitement of discharging cargo, 
although accompanied by such yelling; especially 
the fun of swimming cattle ashore; the complete 
indolence between ports, when they stretched out 
on deck in luxurious ease, to smoke or to play or 
to gamble— all invited him irresistibly. So he 
asked for and received a berth. 

It so happened that this little British steamer 
had a very religious Liverpool first-mate, who, 
when not busy with the cargo at port, or lambast- 
ing Uda for galley pilfering, or for lying— a qual- 
ity Uda shared in common with the average un- 
tutored Sumatra native— was singing hymns 
through his nose over the rail, or solemnly and stol- 




UDA PRANG. 
Who served successfully both his God and Mammon. 



JUNGLE HUNTER 243 

idly laboring to win Uda over from the faith of 
Mohammed. Now Uda was only a boy in his 
teens, but he was a clever youngster, and it was not 
long before it dawned upon him that he always fed 
better on the days when the Church of England 
prevailed than on the days when rope-ending occu- 
pied the otherwise unemployed time of the severe 
sailor-missionary. So it followed naturally in due 
course that Uda " professed Christianity," accept- 
ing the faith in exchange for an extra portion of 
rice and currie, a brass-backed comb and two un- 
dershirts of doubtful ancestry, which the pious, 
and now much elated first-mate gave him. The 
articles of the new faith provided, that in addition 
to feeling the strong right arm of the first-mate, 
Uda's share of rice and currie was to be greatly 
reduced every time he broke the eighth and ninth 
Commandments. As currie and rice are meat and 
drink to the Malayan, it came about that Uda grew 
gradually out of the habit of lying and into the 
habit of truthfulness; and by the time he had 
reached manhood, the habit had become fixed. 

I fell across Uda through the good offices of Jin 
Abu, on returning from our successful elephant 
hunt. With a naked kiddie prattling around, he 
was clearing up a piece of rattan, and I camped 
nearby for a few days, while Jin Abu told him of 
our hunting experience after elephant, and of my 



244 UDA PRANG 

disappointment in not having found rhinoceros 
as well as elephant. Uda was quite a linguist, evi- 
dently the result of his several years' service on the 
coasting steamers. He spoke half English in de- 
liberate fashion, and some Dutch, when he was 
feeling particularly joyous— though he confessed 
to me one day on the Indragiri River that he was 
not so proud of his Dutch. His English was not 
always to be relied on— but at least it was under- 
standable and proved a great boon to me, who had 
been confined to sign language for weeks. If Uda 
was not a fluent talker, he was at all events an eco- 
nomical one, for a single story usually lasted the 
night; not that the tale was intricate— but Uda 
enjoyed the telling. He seemed to have quite an 
opinion of himself as a hunter, and later, whenever 
he and I together encountered natives, he was good 
enough to bracket us with much flourishing of 
hands and an ornate preamble in the soft, tuneful 
Malay. He informed me that he had hunted at 
various times in Java and Borneo, and that if I 
would wait until he had harvested his little crop 
he would go with me on my proposed trip for rhino. 
Uda was for ascending some of the rivers which 
bear to the south and westward from the Siak ; but 
I had seen all that part of Sumatra I cared to, and 
was rather set on making my way to the sections 
divided by the Kampar and the Indragiri rivers, 



JUNGLE HUNTER 245 

which are south of the Siak, and have their source 
well over toward the western coast of the island, 
whence they make their way not quite so deviously 
as the Siak, east into the China Sea. This was a 
section outside of Uda's ken, and, like all the Far 
Eastern coast and river-living people, he saw 
nothing but failure in an attempt to penetrate a 
country which was without beaten path. I had no 
definite information about the district, nor could I 
find native or Dutchman who had visited it; but 
there seemed to be a tradition that so far as rhinoc- 
eros were concerned, it was a land of plenty. So 
I determined to go despite the fact that Uda 
thought little of it and prophesied failure. 

This was all talked out, over and over, labor- 
iously between Uda and me, and translated by him 
to Jin Abu, who still lingered with us, and took 
great interest in the discussion. It occupied sev- 
eral nights to talk it out, for in the day time we 
paddled, Uda sticking to his single dug-out, which 
he was taking down the river to cache ; and when 
we stopped paddling, the mosquitoes demanded a 
good share of our time and attention. Finally the 
plan settled upon was that we should make our 
way down the river— discharging my present party 
at the point where I had engaged them— to the 
mouth of the Siak, where Uda was well acquainted, 
and where we should hire boats and outfit for the 



246 UDA PEANG 

trip down the coast to the Kampar River, which 
we were first to try. Jin Abu wanted very much 
to go with us, but said he could not remain as long 
away from his rattan and fishing ; so we took leave 
of him a little way below where we had first found 
Uda— I with genuine regret— for Jin had been 
faithful and companionable, despite our inter- 
course being restricted largely to sign talk, and I 
had grown to esteem and to like him, as I did no 
other native in the Far East. 

We made rather rough weather of it coasting 
from the mouth of the Siak to the Kampar in the 
prau engaged for the trip. The honest truth is 
that there were times when I wondered if we 
should get anywhere beyond the China Sea; for, 
though the boat proved surprisingly seaworthy, 
the rag we had for a sail, with its foot standing six 
feet above the bottom of the boat, was blown into 
ribbons ; and the long, narrow blade of the Malay 
paddle is not a useful implement on the open sea. 
But it was all we had; and so when the sail went 
by the board, as it soon did after we got under way, 
the crew of three and Uda and I lay our backs to 
the work of paddling for most of the two nights 
and a day of the over-long time it took us to reach 
the mouth of the river. 

The prau is a distinctly Malayan craft, with 
high, sharp bow, and stern so finely drawn as to 



JUNGLE HUNTER 247 

leave barely more than sitting room for the helms- 
men, in a total boat length of twenty feet. It has 
by far the best lines of Malayan boats, and is as 
graceful and speedy as any of the very graceful 
and speedy boats in Far Eastern waters. It is the 
craft in which Malay pirates, of a time not so long 
gone, were accustomed to steal out, from the many 
indentations of their shore-line, upon the unsus- 
pecting and sluggish-moving coaster; it was the 
troop ship of the old days when feuds carried a 
Malay chief and his fighting crew from one river 
to another. It is fast under its square sail, and 
will come safely through pretty roughish going. 
A few of these boats are used at Singapore as 
passenger carriers from wharf to steamer, and 
here they are pulled (or rather pushed) by oars 
and manned by Tamils ; but on the rivers of Malay 
and of Sumatra the prau, when not under sail, is 
invariably paddled. 

The crew of our prau knew slightly more about 
the Kampar River than did Uda and I. They 
were to land us at a little settlement near its 
mouth, beyond which they knew nothing ; and here 
we were to organize our party for a rhino hunt in 
the up-river country. 

The limited knowledge of natives concerning the 
country immediately surrounding them I have 
always noted on my various ventures into wilder- 



248 UDA PRANG 

ness lands, of the Par North as well as of the Far 
East. Beyond the paths they have made or which 
their fathers trod, they know nothing ; though they 
do not confess it. Native imagination, however, 
is as active as their knowledge is limited, and em- 
barrassment and confusion await the visiting ad- 
venturer who has not learned by experience how 
little dependence may be placed on the alleged in- 
formation given under such conditions. 

We found no Dutch at this little river settle- 
ment, Polloe Lawan by name, I think, though I find 
myself uncertain about names on these rivers, and 
having lost my notebook in an upset on the river 
(along with some trophies and many films), I am 
unable to reinforce my memory. 

The Dutch, in fact, have not made much of their 
opportunities along the Sumatra coast and prac- 
tically nothing in the interior; quite a different 
story from Java, which is a veritable and flourish- 
ing garden. Apparently they are satisfied with 
scattered posts near the coast, on a few of the main 
rivers, where paternal interest chiefly manifests 
itself to the natives in taxation upon outgoing 
rattan and incoming sarong stuffs. As a result 
there has been but slight development of Sumatra. 
The natives gather a little rattan and grow a little 
of the plant from which tapioca is made. These 
constitute their total of industries. Beyond this, 



JUNGLE HUNTER 249 

they fish, mostly by means of large bamboo traps 
set along the river banks; but there is no fishing 
for export, and often not enough to supply the 
local wants— though this is more from lack of 
fishing than lack of fish. Not every native has 
the right or the affluence to own such a trap, 
therefore in some districts chosen individuals at 
intervals along the river are given exclusive 
rights— a permission that entails the obligation to 
sell as much of the fish caught as the natives of 
that particular locality may require. Except for 
the tapioca-producing root, which tastes somewhat 
like sweet potato, though not nearly so sweet, there 
is no cultivation of soil by the native ; and there is 
no meat eating. Rice and fish are the staple sup- 
plies ; and there is fruit growing wild for whoever 
will come and take it. The few Chinese traders 
do rather handsomely, for they pay the native 
about half what he could get if he opened direct 
trade with the outside world. Some day a future 
may open for industrial Sumatra, but it will not 
be by any effort of the Malays, or because of the 
present policy of the Dutch. And when develop- 
ment does come to this East India island, it will be 
through the work of plodding John Chinaman, 
who, though damned at every hand, yet— patient, 
stolid, dependable— remains the industrial back- 
bone of Siam and of the Malay Archipelago. Eng- 



250 UDA PRANG 

land could have made no headway in the Malay 
Peninsula without him, and the United States will 
find him equally essential to the development of 
the Philippines— Congress to the contrary not- 
withstanding. 

There was no sultan at the settlement on the 
Kampar to use up my time in vanity-satisfying au- 
diences, or delay my preparation by official red 
tape; but I did find a picturesque, fine-looking 
native old gentleman, who, though somewhat pom- 
pous, and by way of having an exalted idea of his 
importance on the river, was the essence of good 
humor, and exceedingly kind to me. His appear- 
ance, I must confess, did not harmonize with his 
dignified demeanor. He was not more than com- 
fortably rounded, yet had a most pronounced bay- 
window of a stomach, in which he appeared to take 
satisfaction. Whenever he stood to receive me, he 
leaned back at such an angle as to leave little vis- 
ible save this ornament thrust on high, so that, 
approaching head on, you beheld bare legs and feet 
apparently growing directly out of the stomach, 
over the far horizon of which peeped the little 
round crown of the rimless hat he wore. It was 
an irresistible combination of intended dignity of 
mien and actual comicality of appearance ; so irre- 
sistible, in fact, that I begged Uda to ask him to 
remain seated when he received me, because I felt 



JUNGLE HUNTER 251 

abashed in the presence of a standing potentate so 
distinguished. Thereafter my portly host oblig- 
ingly, though, I felt sure, regretfully sat down, 
thus somewhat concealing the prideful feature of 
his anatomy, which had come so near to disturbing 
the entente cordiale between us. It must take 
quite a lot of rice and fish and a number of years 
to develop a bay-window in Sumatra ; that is why, 
I suppose, my good-natured native friend had such 
frank pleasure in the completed product. 

The old gentleman had also quite a retinue of 
kris and spear and betel-nut bearers ; but, next to 
the bay-window, the joy of the old gentleman's 
heart was his son, who had made a trip to Singa- 
pore several years before my arrival, and had ever 
since shone preeminently in the country there- 
abouts on the glory of that visit. He was about 
twenty or a few years older, with excellent fea- 
tures, and a white jacket bearing silver buttons 
which he had ingeniously manufactured from 
pieces of coin acquired on that memorable trip. 
But what he valued most, and invariably wore on 
special occasions, was a pair of patent leather 
shoes from which he had cut all the leather save 
just the toe, thus making a pair of slipper-like 
shoes whose rat-tat-tat of heel, as he slapped along, 
sounded strangely aggressive among the bare- 
footed, noiseless steps of all the others. The son 
proved to be as kind to me as the father. 



252 UDA PRANG 

In the three days I stayed at the settlement out- 
fitting, I found little to differentiate these from 
other natives of the Malayan islands. They look 
more or less alike; affect about the same kind of 
costume, sarongs chiefly, though trousers of local 
cut and jackets are also worn largely, except on 
the Peninsula, where they are used only by gov- 
ernment servants, or by hunting natives in the jun- 
gle, to protect their bodies from the thorns. So 
far as Sumatra is concerned, individual tastes are 
revealed in the headgear, which may be simply the 
rimless cap, a turban covering the head com- 
pletely, or binding the head to leave the top ex- 
posed, or fashioned into projecting horns at front 
or side of head ; or they may have no head cover- 
ing whatever. When they have been to Mecca, 
the rimless cap is white, and ever after invariably 
worn; for the pilgrim to that holy shrine is the 
envy of all beholders less travelled, and he misses 
no opportunity to advertise his fortunes, as the 
little white caps are very conspicuous. Uda 
Prang owned such a cap; but, professing Chris- 
tianity, I never saw him* wear it except deep in 
the jungle— and there it never left his head, day 
or night. Those who have not been to Mecca wear 
caps of a somewhat similar shape, but of dark col- 
ored stuffs; but the strongest desire to earn the 
right to wear the white cap rules in every Malay, 



JUNGLE HUKTBE 253 

and many literally sell themselves into bondage, 
willing to spend remaining years of their lives pay- 
ing back the cost, that they may get the money to 
make this pilgrimage. Should the pilgrim die en 
route, he is saved, according to the belief ; for the 
faithful one who loaned the money— I find no pro- 
vision, material or spiritual. 

The little white cap always comes high. 

All the natives with whom I came in contact, I 
found most earnest in their devotions and punctil- 
ious in living up to the demands of their religion. 
They drink no liquor, eat no meat of which they 
have not cut the throat, and abhor bacon and dogs. 
They will not carry a basket in which there is 
bacon, nor permit a dog to touch them. This rids 
the country of the mongrel curs, the pariahs, with 
which Siam is overrun, because Buddha forbids 
the killing of any animal. I f ound it a distinctly 
pleasant change. 

When they live on the river banks, in their 
houses built on stilts, the natives are clean; the 
houses are all of the same pattern, as are the pots 
for boiling rice, and the bamboo baskets, but here 
and there a crude earthenware bowl shows lines 
that suggest India. In the settlements practically 
all Malays carry the kris; in town it becomes a 
timbuk lada, and in the jungle they add the parang, 
which is a knife with a short handle and an eight- 



254 UDA PEANG 

een-inch blade, fashioned at the point and deco- 
rated according to the whim of the maker. 

I had not nearly the difficulty in organizing a 
party here as elsewhere in Sumatra, and none 
whatever in securing a sampan and a four-paddle 
dug-out. Two Chinamen manned the sampan 
and carried the bulk of provisions, which consisted 
chiefly of rice, dried fish and coffee, while three 
natives and Uda comprised the crew of the canoe. 
Two of my natives brought along some kind of 
rifle, not known to me, which they had picked up 
in trade from a coaster ; Uda had an old Martini, 
and my armory included a .50 half magazine and 
a double 12-bore. No one at the settlement could 
give us specific information concerning the up- 
country rhinoceros. We could find no one who 
had hunted the country, or seen tracks, or talked 
with any man that had. It seemed to be entirely 
a matter of tradition that rhinoceros lived in that 
country, yet all the natives, even my well meaning 
old friend, glibly assured us that up the river three 
or four days we should find plenty of rhino. Na- 
tives have a casual way of misinforming the 
adventurer, and the Europeans I found in the Far 
East appear to have acquired a somewhat similar 
habit. It's one of those things the hunter should 
accept along with fever and leeches, as of the 
handicaps indigenous to the country. 



JUNGLE HUNTER 255 

In a week's trip up the Kampar we passed sev- 
eral little settlements, usually huddled at the mouth 
of a small river, of which there were a great many ; 
and here and there we saw paths extending back 
into the jungle to other little settlements from 
three to five miles inland ; and now and again came 
upon a partial clearing where had been planted a 
small patch of padi. Other than these threads of 
trails hacked out of the jungle, nowhere are there 
roads leading inland, for the country is swamp- 
like for the greater part, and mostly the people 
catch fish, which, with the fruit, serves as their 
main sustenance. Lining the rivers, whether they 
narrow or broaden, are great stiff spears, standing 
out of the water from six to seven feet, with palm- 
like leaves, which maintain a width of two inches 
except at the end, where they become a sharp, 
strong point. Other palms along the banks bear 
a poisonous fruit as large as a small watermelon, 
and are shunned alike by men and birds. 

As we paddled along, every now and again one 
of my men broke out in a most doleful, dirgelike 
wail, which rather disturbed my peace until Uda 
assured me he was singing his prayers. Later we 
passed canoes with several paddlers singing 
prayers together; and once, at one of the settle- 
ments, two men sang prayers and six others joined 
them to an accompaniment of heavy drums. We 



256 UDA PRANG 

happened to camp at this place and the devotions 
kept up until late into the night. 

It was our scheme to go up the Kampar for some 
distance, eventually following to its source one of 
the branch streams, and from there to start inland. 
It was possible quite frequently to land and hunt. 
Often we heard of elephants, sometimes we saw 
their tracks; and, as we got farther up river we 
heard also of rhinoceros. Frequently we saw deer, 
which were fairly plentiful in the higher reaches 
of country, but I never shot, because I did not 
require the meat, and I could not spare space for 
such trophies in my boats. At practically every 
settlement, especially where deer abounded, we 
heard of tiger and leopard. But as a whole, it did 
not seem to me much of a game country. Certainly 
I should never make another trip to that island 
only for hunting. 

The Kampar and the Indragiri rivers are typical 
of Sumatra— low, sometimes indistinguishable 
banks, covered with heavy jungle, dense palm- 
spear growth reaching ten to fifteen feet out 
towards the middle of the stream. As we prog- 
ressed toward headwaters and on to the smaller 
rivers, the growth continued as dense, though not 
extending so far from the banks. Here, as on the 
Siak, and its tributaries, we heard the mournful 
scale of the wa wa monkey, the loud single note of 




TIED UP IN THE JUNGLE STREAM FOR NOON MEAL. 



ALONG THE KAMPAR, TYPICAL OF SUMATRA RIVERS. 



JUNGLE HUNTER 257 

the poot-poot bird, and the hoarse croaking of the 
herons in the evening. There was no twilight. 
The sun set at six, and half an hour later it was 
dark. The water was of a deep garnet color, 
sometimes in the larger river so deep as to be 
almost black, and a mirror that reflected the palms 
and our paddles as we moved over its surface. 
Occasionally as we paddled along, usually at about 
three miles an hour, we met a low native canoe, with 
paddlers crouching bow and stern, using the nar- 
row, long-pointed blade of the Malay paddle with 
silent powerful stroke ; but these were few and far 
between. There was little travel on the river, and 
even at the settlements were sometimes not more 
than three or four, never to exceed a dozen, men. 
Thus working our way toward the interior, natives 
became scarcer, and after a couple of weeks disap- 
peared entirely. 

Meantime I had found Uda a source unfailing 
of entertainment and interest. I wish I could re- 
count the marvellous tales he unwound for my 
benefit. I rather encouraged him, for he was pic- 
turesque, and it suited my purpose to size him up 
before we got upon the more serious business of 
hunting in the jungle. Perhaps the most fre- 
quently recurring theme of Uda's life story was his 
intrepid conduct in the face of wounded and 
fiercely charging wild beasts, and his contempt for 

17 



258 UDA PRANG 

the natives, whom he characterized as goats. 
Uda's nerve was to be tested sooner than he im- 
agined, and with results not to his credit. 

We had branched into two or three different 
rivers, always bearing to the south by west, and 
finally got on one about fifteen feet in width, some- 
what more crooked than the rule, but rather clearer 
of the usual spearlike palm growth extending from 
the banks. I had been on the outlook for tapir 
since we left the last settlement, for, though no 
native had spoken of them, I felt convinced they 
must be in such country. All along, it had been 
my habit to take position in the bow of the canoe 
with rifle whenever we came to a section which, in 
my eyes, appeared particularly gamy, or upon a 
stretch of tortuous river. Some days we would 
go along thus for hours, with me sitting in the 
bow, rifle across my knees, while back of me the 
men bent to their silent paddling and singing their 
prayers. It struck me as curious, not to say 
amusing, that whenever I took my place in the bow 
with rifle, the men broke out in prayer singing. 
Early in the experience I stopped them singing 
aloud, but I could never still them entirely. And 
so we moved swiftly and quietly along, the paddles 
keeping silent rhythm to the persistent prayerful 
humming. Day after day passed thus, with 
scarcely a word spoken, for I impressed upon Uda 



JUNGLE HUNTER 259 

my desire to make fast headway, and promised 
good presents to the men if they worked diligently ; 
so there was little conversation during the paddling 
hours, which were from daylight to sunset, except 
on the more or less frequent occasions when we had 
to stop and clear the stream of fallen trees, or cut 
a way through the entangling roots of a great stump 
that barred our passage. At such times I was 
much taken with the skill of the Malays in handling 
the parang and with the speed and accuracy and 
force of their strokes. 

Thus one afternoon late we were paddling up 
stream, with me in the bow, rifle in hand, as usual, 
when, as we rounded a bend in the river, I sighted 
a tapir about fifty yards ahead. It was just disap- 
pearing into the palms at the river bank as I took 
a snap shot at its hind quarter— all that was to be 
seen when I got my rifle to shoulder. On the re- 
port, the canoe stopped so suddenly that I, sitting 
loosely, went over backwards on top of one of the 
natives, who shunted against another, and a sudden 
panic resulted which came very near upsetting the 
craft. Eighting myself, I was a bit surprised to 
notice that my men, including the intrepid Uda, 
were obviously in a greatly perturbed state of 
mind. And I was at a loss to know why, until I 
urged Uda to send the canoe on so I could land 
and track the tapir. It appears that, having seen 



260 UDA PRANG 

nothing, the sudden report of my rifle, breaking 
in upon their prayer crooning, had startled them, 
and at the same time aroused that dread of the in- 
tangible which I have found to possess all simple 
peoples, from the arctics to the tropics, to a fear- 
some degree. They refused to paddle on ; in fact, 
there was a movement to swing the canoe back, 
which I stopped peremptorily; and then I up- 
braided Uda, who much annoyed me by rather 
leaning with the natives than with me, in language 
with which he had no doubt become familiar on 
board the coasting steamer. Every man of my 
crew had picked up his parang, and it did look for 
a few moments a bit more like a war than a pad- 
dling party; meantime the canoe drifted back, held 
head on, however, by Uda, who kept to his paddle 
in the stern. Finally Uda pulled himself together, 
and began talking to the crew, and after a few mo- 
ments they put down their knives and took up pad- 
dles again. It is remarkable how craven-hearted 
the deep-seated dread of the unknown will make 
natives of the wilds; and yet again how desper- 
ately brave they will be where the conditions are 
usual and the surroundings familiar. 

Wallowing through mud knee deep, I found the 
tapir inland several hundred yards on three legs, 
and succeeded, after about an hour's stalking, in 
bringing it down. It is an ugly, pig-like looking 



JUNGLE HUNTER 261 

thing of no sport-giving qualities, and I only shot 
because, being somewhat nocturnal in its habits, it 
is not frequently seen, and I wanted to make a 
near study of its differentiation from the South 
American type. In a few words this may be 
summed up; the Malay type has a whitish back, 
longer snout and flat head crown, as compared with 
the Brazilian tapir, which is all black, has almost 
no snout, and the head crown elevated. I took the 
forefeet of my tapir, but subsequently lost them, 
with other more valuable trophies, when we upset, 
as we did several times. I had much difficulty in 
working my way out to the river point where I had 
landed, and when I did, the canoe was not in sight ; 
and in the muck and mud of the jungle— for I had 
got into a very swampy piece of it— it took me 
nearly three hours to wallow around to a bend 
lower on the river, by which time it was dark. 
Finally, however, I raised an answer to my shouts 
from the sampan, which the Chinamen, indifferent 
to wild beasts of the jungle as to the cares of the 
world, and with no dread of the mysterious, had 
brought in close to the bank and tied to a palm. 
The canoe I finally discovered a little farther down 
stream, the men still apparently uneasy. They 
were a full mile below where I had got out, and I 
might have walked all night but for the Chinamen. 
Before turning in that night, on the sampan, 



262 UDA PRANG 

where I slept when we did not camp ashore, I con- 
gratulated Uda Prang on the courage he had shown 
that afternoon, and told him of my delight in 
having a jungle hunter of such prowess in my 
party. 

Next morning we took up our course again. I 
must say the river travel had become very monot- 
onous—really oppressive. All the time there was 
the same scene— palms and a dense jungle lining 
the banks, with trees here and there showing their 
tops in the background. Now and again we saw 
some monkeys with long and short tails, and heard 
the rasping screech of a hornbill, or the croak of a 
heron ; now and again a crocodile with baleful eye 
sunk from sight as we neared. At rare intervals 
a lonely bird sent out a few notes. Otherwise there 
was only the squeak of the sampan oars following 
us, and the men in the canoe now humming, now 
softly singing, as they drew their paddles through 
the water. Overhead, just about sunset, passed 
every afternoon great flocks of fruit bats, which 
seemed always to be going west. The stream here 
narrowed considerably, and after three days tow- 
ing the sampan, because there was not width 
enough to use the oars, we came at length one after- 
noon to the headwaters. 

As there was no interior settlement of which we 
knew in the direction we were going, we made a 



JUNGLE HUNTER 263 

camp inland about ten miles, where I stationed the 
Chinamen, one of the Malays* and the provisions, 
while Uda, two of the natives and I went after 
rhino. My scheme was to use this camp as a sup- 
ply station, making from it trips of three to four 
days' duration, until I had worked over all the sur- 
rounding territory, and then to reestablish the sup- 
ply camp, again and again, until I got what I 
sought. I found here the most attractive country 
I had hunted in Sumatra, though that is not saying 
a great deal, for, speaking generally, it was the 
same dense jungle as elsewhere, only here were 
upland stretches of comparative openness and dry- 
ness. It was a delight to come out of the dark, 
cheerless jungle into the sunshine, hot as it was, 
where the birds were calling. There was the 
mynah bird, rather effectively marked in black and 
yellow, which I was told can be taught to talk if 
taken when young; and there was another bird 
about the size of a pigeon, with black plumage and 
forked tail, which, in fairly plentiful numbers, zig- 
zagged across the heavens, uttering one or two not 
unmusical notes. 

One of the most attractive birds I saw was a bril- 
liant kingfisher; and one of those I did not see 
was the jungle fowl, of which I had heard, but 
which, I understand from good authority, is not 
to be found in Sumatra. Once in a while I saw 



264 UDA PRANG 

a few green doves of the variety so common and 
plentiful in Siam. There were many birds, in- 
deed, of varying though not brilliant plumage ; and 
monkeys of all sizes, and of all hues of countenance. 
Of the barking deer there were also many, and now 
and then I saw the tiny mouse deer, with its ex- 
quisitely dainty lines, the entire animal less than 
eighteen inches in height. Of wild pig tracks 
there were many. It was a great relief from 
tramping through the mud and wet clinging un- 
dergrowth of the dismal jungle. 

Jungle hunting is so different from that of the 
uplands or of the mountains ; it is so monotonous, 
so uneventful. Only at the finish, when you are 
immediately before your game, and not always 
then, is there any stalking. There is no woodcraft. 
You simply wallow in mud, cutting a way through 
dense undergrowth impenetrable to the eye, some- 
times crawling through mud holes up to your knees. 
Never is there opportunity of a view ahead, as to 
the lie of the land or the probable course of the 
game. You may only plod on, following the 
tracks, hopeful that the next mud hole may show 
fresh spoor. And the gloom of the interior prim- 
eval soundless jungle is most depressing. 

Moving our main camp farther into the interior 
several times, thus to give us wider range from our 
base of supplies, we had covered quite an area and 



JUNGLE HUNTER 265 

hunted diligently every day of eight before we found 
a section which gave indication of rhinoceros. Most 
of those eight days it had rained, and the 8x12 
canvas fly I carried came in very handy to save 
provisions and protect our heads at night from the 
almost incessant downpour. Several times I saw 
the pugs of leopard, and one day, as, under a gen- 
erous shade-giving bush, I sat writing in my note 
book, while the main camp was being moved, I 
had the unusual good fortune to see the end of a 
stalk by a black leopard upon a barking deer. I 
could easily have got a snap shot had my camera 
been at hand instead of in its tin box, journeying 
toward the new camp site, about ten miles away. 
While I wrote I heard several barking deer with- 
out looking up ; in fact they were so common that 
I never did pay attention, except where there was 
hope of getting near to study them ; but, as I wrote, 
a strange and, it seemed, distressful yelp, caused 
me to look up in time to see a deer just bounding 
out from the jungle edge, with a black leopard not 
two dozen feet behind. In two leaps the leopard 
had reached the deer and sprung, seizing its neck 
just back of the head with its jaws. The two 
turned almost a somersault— and then the deer lay 
quite still— its neck evidently broken. It hap- 
pened in the open not fifty feet from me, and I 
sat for a full ten minutes watching the first one 



266 TTDA PRANG 

of the cat family I had ever seen mauling its prey. 
The leopard's actions were precisely those of the 
cat with a mouse after a kill; it put out a fore 
paw, pushing the deer, then pulling, and once 
or twice leaped lightly from one side to the other. 
It was some minutes before the leopard satisfied 
itself of the deer's death, if that was the object 
of the mauling ; and then, fastening its fangs in the 
deer's throat, though without tearing the flesh- 
that is, without ripping it— it seemed to suck the 
blood. Thus far its actions had been rather delib- 
erate, and not ravenous. But now it went to the 
stomach, which it ripped open quickly, and at once 
changed to a ravenous, wild creature, as it began 
dragging out the intestines until it had secured the 
liver and the heart. Then it settled to feeding; 
and when it had about finished the performance— I 
shot. The panther and leopard are commonly be- 
lieved always to spring from ambush upon the 
back of their victim ; and while they both do so on 
occasion, the more usual method of the panther is 
to seize by the throat at the end of a quick, short 
rush. The leopard follows the popular theory 
more often because it preys largely upon goats, the 
small deer and young pigs, whose necks may be 
crushed between its jaws. To dislocate the neck 
of larger prey it must take hold of the throat and 
have the aid of its fore paws with which to take 



JUNGLE HUNTER 267 

hold of the victim's shoulder. Many of the hun- 
ters I have met, and some of the authors I have 
read, appear to consider the black leopard a dis- 
tinct species; but it is simply a freak cub of the 
ordinary spotted leopard, just as the silver and the 
black fox are freaks of the common red. In a 
litter from a red vixen I have seen a silver among 
red pups; and I met a man in the jungle where 
lower Siam meets the Malay Peninsula who had 
found a black among the spotted leopard's cubs. 
Upon the latter, however, the spots are never 
very clearly defined until they become older. In 
other experiences of leopard and panther hunting 
throughout Malaya I came to enjoy it even more 
than the style of hunting there made necessary 
for tiger. The panther, which is a larger edition 
of the leopard, is not so strong, or so formidable 
an opponent in a fight, but is much more active 
than a tiger and is aroused more easily and is 
bolder in its attack. Then, too, its tree-climbing 
habits make it both dangerous and elusive. In 
some respects, it is the more interesting and sport- 
ing animal to stalk, though, of course, as a trophy 
it is not valued like the tiger, nor has it the majesty 
of his Royal Stripes, or the tremendous onslaught 
when the attack is driven home. 

My leopard measured five feet six inches from 
the tip of its nose to the end of its tail, and was 



268 UDA PRANG 

the only black leopard that I killed— the only one, 
in fact, that I saw; it was unusual good fortune 
indeed, for they are somewhat rare— at least to 
secure. I noticed, after I got its pelt off, that in 
the sun it had a kind of watered silk appearance as 
a result of the deeper black of the spots, which, 
though invisible, were really there just the same. 
The jungle we now worked into was different 
from any I had seen. It was very dense, and yet 
now and again we came to comparatively open 
places, which in the. centre usually had a kind of 
mound, from two to three feet in height, sometimes 
six or eight, and sometimes as much as twenty feet 
in diameter. These mounds were circular and 
composed of an interlacing of timber and vines and 
creepers ; they looked like nothing so much as rub- 
bish heaps left after the surrounding soil had 
washed away. Another novel sight was a tree with 
base standing clear of the soil, and roots spreading 
hither and thither exposed to view. Sometimes 
the tree base was a foot and a half above the 
ground, as though it had been forced up by its 
roots. I found wild bananas, and the natives found 
many roots and leaves which they ate with obvious 
relish. Many of these roots are used for medic- 
inal purposes, and in every native house is always 
a stowed away drum filled with roots, leaves and 
other nature nostrums for use in case of emergency. 




A "REAL LADY" OF THE SIAMESE JUNGLE NEAR THE BURMA LINE. 
Dressed for the express purpose of having her photograph taken hy the author. 




AT THE HEAD WATERS. 



JUNGLE HUNTER 269 

There were no noises in this jungle except early in 
the morning and late at dusk, when a bird I never 
saw called in voice extraordinarily harsh and far 
reaching. 

Through all the time I was in Sumatra I kept 
my eye constantly open for that most marvellously 
plumaged bird, the argus pheasant; but though I 
once found a small feather, I never saw the bird 
itself. Indeed, few have ever seen it in the wild. 
They are the shyest and most difficult to approach,, 
perhaps, of all living things in the world. 

Nearly all the time it rained, but that did not 
dampen the activity of the mosquitoes, which raged 
persistently in swarms around us. Sometimes 
when tracking rhino they buzzed about my head in 
such multitudes that I could literally get a handful 
at every stroke. I anointed my face with penny- 
royal, purchased for the purpose from a wise drug- 
gist who, not having ventured away from paved 
streets, insisted there was nothing like it to keep 
off jungle pests. When not actually hunting, mos- 
quitoes and small flies and red ants combined to 
make life quite stirring. I used to seek the rude r 
sometimes flesh-tearing slap of the jungle brush 
against my face and head— it cleared the field of 
mosquitoes for the moment— and often I pushed my 
way through bushes without using the jungle knife, 
simply to brush away the swarms of insects that 



270 UDA PRANG 

clung to me. Thus attacked by the insects above 
and by the red ants below, one was not lacking occu- 
pation at any time. 

Uda, after all, proved to be a tolerably fair man 
in the jungle. He was not so accomplished as his 
tales suggested, but, as Malays go, he was a pretty 
dependable tracker. Above all he was good- 
natured. In fact, all three of my men, Uda, Bilal 
and Che, were even-tempered and took the trials 
as they came— and they came often— without 
getting sulky, and always seemed ready for more. 
They were a long way the best jungle men I secured 
at any time in the Far East. Neither Bilal nor 
Che could speak a word of anything except Malay, 
but Bilal was a facile sign talker, and he and I had 
many animated conversations through that me- 
dium while we were in the jungle. I usually took 
him with me in the lead, leaving Uda to round up 
Che, or to follow independent tracks. Bilal was 
not handsome, but he was strong and ready and 
exceptionally good-humored; and his dearest pos- 
session was an undershirt he had somewhere got 
in trade, and which was especially useful in the 
jungle— but he wore it on all occasions. Bilal, so 
Uda gave me to understand, was quite an elephant 
hunter, his professed method being to trap or to 
steal upon the animal when sleeping, and, with a 



JUNGLE HUNTER 271 

long knife fastened to a stick, to cut its trunk and 
then follow until it dropped from loss of blood. 

We had followed a great many tracks, and twice 
we had heard rhino, but in cover so dense that it 
was impossible to see them. One day I came on 
elephant tracks, and a broad pathway through the 
jungle showed where they had gone, comparatively 
recently. Uda and my two men were hot-foot for 
following these, but my time limit was drawing 
near— and rhino still unfound. Throughout all 
these days my men had been very patient ; and Uda, 
who said this particular section was much like 
Java, where he claimed to have hunted much, now 
expressed confidence in our finally getting rhino. 
One morning early we got on quite fresh tracks, 
which we followed for several hours through very 
dense undergrowth, the rhino meanwhile seeking 
all the mud holes in the direction of his route. We 
travelled in these tracks until noon as swiftly as 
we could, and as silently ; and as they continued so 
fresh and little more than a breath of air appeared 
to be stirring, we went along stealthily, expecting 
to come up with the quarry at any time. But it 
was nearing five o'clock, with the chill of the ap- 
proaching sunset beginning to settle upon the jun- 
gle, and still we followed the spoor hopefully— 
though unrewarded. Then the tracks led into and 



272 UDA PRANG 

across one of those mound-containing spaces to 
which I have referred. 

It occurred to me as a useful thought to get on 
top of the mound which happened to be a biggish 
one, and make the best survey the lookout per- 
mitted of the other side of the space where the 
jungle was thinnish. And, by the gods, there, 
barely discernible, was the long-sought rhino mov- 
ing around like a great hog. Having more con- 
fidence in these natives than I had felt in those 
elsewhere in Sumatra, I had given my .50 to Bilal, 
who was directly at my heels— Uda and Che had 
not yet come up to us— and I carried my 12-bore. 
The rhino was perhaps not over twenty yards away, 
yet I could see him very indistinctly, and I feared 
to manoeuvre for a better position lest he get my 
wind and move away into the denser jungle, where 
to view him at even ten yards would be an unusual 
opportunity; so taking the best sight I could get 
as he squashed about, heading somewhat in my 
direction, I put the contents of both barrels, one 
after the other, as quickly as I could pull the trig- 
gers, just behind of his shoulder and ranging back. 
There was a tremendous commotion as he disap- 
peared, so quickly as to astonish me, with a crash 
into the jungle. Standing on the mound I could 
feel a very little wind and note that it was blowing 
across my position from east to west, and, as the 



JUNGLE HUNTER 273 

rhino made off to the southwest, I felt sure he 
would cross my wind and that if he did he would 
be likely to charge. It seemed at the moment to 
be my best chance of another shot, for of course I 
could not begin to get through the thick jungle 
at the pace he was going, and would have been left 
far behind had I attempted to follow. So I held 
my position, awaiting developments— knowing I 
could track him later, if nothing interesting hap- 
pened in the immediate future. 

Meanwhile I could not determine his exact loca- 
tion, but while immediately after the report he 
seemed to be going away, in a few moments it 
appeared to me he was coming toward the open 
space. Meantime I was endeavoring to get the 
cartridges out of the 12-bore, which had a defec- 
tive ejector, and, as I was fingering with this, the 
rhino broke from the jungle, coming directly 
toward me, charging truly up-wind. It was not 
over forty feet from where he broke out of the jun- 
gle to where I stood on the mound, the latter being 
perhaps twenty feet in diameter, and the rhino 
came on without hesitation and without noise ex- 
cept that made by his feet and huge bulk, his head 
held straight out, not lowered like a bull, and with 
his little eye squinting savagely. I had hastily 
handed the 12-bore over to Bilal, taking the .50, 
when the rhino broke from the jungle, and as he 

18 



274 UDA PRANG 

came up on to the mound, I fired twice for that 
wicked eye (the eye of a charging rhino is a pretty 
small mark, perhaps you may know) , once making 
a slight superficial wound on the forehead, and 
again sending the ball into the fleshy part of the 
fore shoulder. Neither shot made any impression 
on the rhino, which kept coming. 

By now he was not more than ten feet from me, 
I should say, and I had just pumped another shell 
into the barrel, when suddenly I was thrown off 
my feet and over the side of the mound. As I went 
into the air, I expected every second to feel the 
rhino's horn in my side; but I held on to my rifle 
(which, curiously, did not go off although at full 
cock) and, when I fell, scrambled to my feet as 
quickly as I could. The rhino had crossed the 
mound and was running towards the jungle with 
apparently no more thought of me than if I had 
not stood in his path a few seconds before. It did 
not take me long to put a ball at the base of his 
ear, and he dropped like a stone— without a sound. 

He had but a single horn on the lower part of 
the nose, four inches in height, and a kind of knob 
where had been, or was to be, another above it. 
The usual Indian rhino, including the smaller 
Malay, has one horn, but some of the Sumatra 
variety have two. 

It was an experience rather conclusive on the 



JUNGLE HUNTER 275 

question of the rhino charging by scent rather than 
by sight. He charged straight toward me up-wind, 
and when I dropped off the mound, to the south, I 
was thrown off his scent. Either he lost sight of 
me, as could easily have happened, or he is not 
governed by sight— for he never swerved from his 
path. I found both 12-bore bullets in his hind 
quarters ; the .50 ball had gone in behind the right 
ear, and into the left jaw. 

The rhino had stepped, as he drew near, upon 
one end of a long, small log on the other end of 
which I stood ; and thus he teetered me out of his 
path. 

No doubt it was a lucky teeter for me. 



CHAPTER XI 
THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 

THE tiger stirs imagination as does no other 
beast of the earth. When the superstitious 
native of the Far East refers to the dreaded 
cholera, he speaks awesomely of " the sickness "; 
and when the craven-hearted Bengali of India, 
with hushed breath and deprecatory gesture, tells 
of man or bullock carried off in the night by tiger, 
he alludes to the marauder deferentially as " the 
animal." For the tiger is a personage in the 
Orient to whom the fearful build propitiatory 
shrines, and whose influence upon the people of 
the soil is as mysterious as it is potent. The 
stealth of the great cat's approach, the deliberate 
savagery of its attack, its swift force, its sudden 
coming and going— like visitations of lightning- 
make compelling appeal to the impressionable na- 
ture of the Indian who fills his jungle with fan- 
ciful deities to safeguard his path and to divide 
his tributes. It may be only a little raised plat- 
form—bearing a soiled, fluttering rag, or a crudely 
carved, or painted, or even plain stone set up in 
a clearing under some tree ; but no native traveller 

276 



THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 277 

passes without adding his mite or raising his voice 
in supplication to the gods that stand between him 
and the conjured terrors of the silent, fearsome 
jungle. If hunters would have success the offer- 
ing must be a goat, or a bullock that has, perhaps, 
outlived its usefulness ; to neglect such sacrifice is 
to forfeit protection in favor of the tiger. On 
the Brahmapootra I fell among people that even 
deified the beast in itself; and on the Jamna I 
heard of a resident " man-eater " which none 
could kill because it bore the spirit of a one-time 
victim who directed its attacks and warned it 
against unfriendly hunters. I heard here of a 
tigress with forty-five human lives to her credit. 
Over all the Far East the trails of the tiger are 
many and devious; but despite notorious reputa- 
tion and an annual murder record of some length, 
it is not the unavoidable domestic necessity of 
foreign India as many, who have never visited that 
wonderland of color and human interest, appear 
to think. Indeed only a small percentage of resi- 
dent white men ever see either a tiger on a snake 
outside the zoo, for man-eaters do not invade Eng- 
lish houses, and the fox terrier and the mongoose 
keep the immediate premises free of snakes. Of 
the bare-footed and bare-legged jungle-living na- 
tives, however, it is a different story. They pay 
the toll. Yet is the native fashioned on such 



278 THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 

strange lines that though he dies in large numbers 
from attacks of poisonous snakes, he avoids killing 
the cobra, the most deadly viper of them all. 

Year by year records are published of the de- 
struction of human and cattle life by the wild 
beasts and snakes of British India. Last year 
24,576 human beings and 96,226 cattle were killed, 
and of the people 21,827 deaths were attributed 
to snakes, while of the cattle, 86,000 were killed 
by wild beasts— panthers being charged with 40,000 
and tigers with 30,000 of this total; snakes ac- 
counted for 16,000. And this is but a trifling per- 
centage of the actual annual mortality, as it ex- 
cludes the feudatory states, with their about 700,- 
000 square miles and 60,000,000 inhabitants, where 
no records are obtainable. Nor do the fatalities 
grow materially less notwithstanding the efforts 
of sportsmen and rewards by government, because 
the development of roads and railways as the jun- 
gle is reclaimed for agriculture means continuous 
invasion of the snake and tiger infested territory. 

Last year 1,285 tigers, 4,370 panthers and leop- 
ards, 2,000 bears, and 2,086 wolves were killed ; of 
snakes, the real scourge of India, no record is pos- 
sible, and, unfortunately, comparatively few are 
destroyed. However deplorable and costly is the 
taking of human and cattle life, the descent upon 
promising crops by deer and pigs and monkeys 



THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 279 

would be even more serious to India and more ex- 
pensive to the natives were it not for the tiger, 
panther and leopard. This formidable trio of the 
cat family practically police agricultural India 
where it pushes into the jungle, and make it pos- 
sible for the poor native to exist through culti- 
vation of his fields. So after all, it is a question 
whether, speaking very broadly, tigers are not 
more beneficial than harmful. Undoubtedly the 
depredations of the tiger are over-estimated, be- 
cause he is so feared that wherever he prowls 
invariable panic spreads widely to his discredit. 
On India's last year's death list, 2,649 are credited 
to wild beasts, and while all of these are laid up 
against the tiger, panthers and wolves, especially 
panthers, should be charged with a very consid- 
erable share. The fact is that the panther and 
leopard, which, except as to size, are about alike in 
spotted pelt and temper, are as much under-esti- 
mated as the tiger is over-estimated. The smaller 
leopard devotes itself more largely to goats and 
pigs and monkeys, while the panther attacks deer, 
gaur, cattle and man— for the panther also, on occa- 
sions, becomes a "man-eater," and when he does he 
is a fury, insatiable. Panthers are bolder in attack, 
more active and more generally vicious than tigers ; 
yet they inspire nothing like such awe among the 
natives. Indeed, I have seen natives rally to the 



280 THE TEAIL OF THE TIGER 

defence of a dog, of which leopards are particu- 
larly fond, when, had the intruder been a tiger, they 
would have been paralyzed into inaction from very 
fear. Based on my experience, I consider panther 
hunting quite as dangerous as tiger, up to a certain 
point, and that point is actual close conflict. The 
panther is the quicker to charge because of shorter 
temper and less caution ; and he is less apt to bluff. 
But the charge home of the tiger is incomparably 
overwhelming. There is no turning it aside. It 
may have false starts and move with studied care, 
but when it does come nothing human can with- 
stand it. 

While their pelts differentiate slightly in mark- 
ings and in length of fur according to habitat, there 
is, I believe, no scientific classification of tigers 
other than that given to the single species, Felis 
tigris; although that mighty hunter, Doctor Wil- 
liam Lord Smith, who spent 1903-04 hunting in 
Corea, Java and Persia, tells me he thinks he can 
establish a sub-species. Be that as it may develop, 
at this writing the tiger family is really one, from 
the heavy-furred Siberian, to the Chinese, Corean, 
Malayan, Indian, and Persian, which latter Dr. 
Smith says does the family no credit in the matter 
of courage. The Chinese and Corean are the same 
and both fighters; the Indian and Malayan are 
practically identical, and the most beautifully 




< 1 



THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 281 

marked as well as the most ferocious. So far as 
known, Siberian, Chinese, Corean and Persian 
tigers prey on deer, cattle, pigs, goats, dogs, ac- 
cording to locality and opportunity. I'have not 
heard of a habitual man-eater among any of these 
members of the tiger family. But the Indian, 
which is, also the Malayan, is divided according to 
its predatory habit into three classes : 

(1) Cattle killers. 

(2) Game killers, and 

(3) Man-eaters. 

The cattle killer is the largest, and the most pow- 
erful of the three, but the least to be feared by 
man. He is, in fact, by way of being sociable, prone 
to take up his abode in the jungle nearby a settle- 
ment where, on terms of easy friendliness with the 
village people, he lives and levies tribute of a cow 
or bullock from every three to five days, accord- 
ing to the size and condition of the victim. Some- 
times if disturbed in his stalk or at the killing, 
he increases the number, apparently out of pure 
wantonness of spirit, as a warning that he must be 
left alone under penalty of death. I have heard 
of tigers killing in this way as many as eight or 
ten animals, one after the other, and in each such 
case to come to my personal knowledge the natives 
have attributed the depredation to a particular 
tiger that had been interrupted in its cattle killing 



282 THE TEAIL OF THE TIGER 

during the formation of its habits in early youth. 
It is passing strange how tigers are given indi- 
viduality in the hill districts of India, where the 
natives tremble at the mere mention of the terrible 
name. 

The cattle killer is not a wide ranger unless 
hunted. Usually he confines his work to few vil- 
lages, taking toll of them with impartiality and 
with regularity, and killing about seventy bullocks 
a year, of an average value of $8 to $10 a head; 
for it is to be remembered that the tiger usually 
gets the least valuable, the stray or the weakly cast 
adrift after outliving its usefulness. The more 
valuable are not so often raided, because in India 
cattle are very carefully herded. 

The game killer is usually lighter, always the 
most active of the three, keeps himself well in the 
jungle, especially in the hill districts, and away 
from villages and men, except when on a deer or 
pig trail that carries him to cultivated fields. Thus 
the game killer ranges widely through the jungle, 
and is the one less often encountered by the 
sportsman. 

Whether or not tigers hunt by scent is a question 
that has caused much discussion at one time or 
another, and while there can be no doubt that their 
sense of smell is less keen than that of deer, ele- 
phant, rhino, or the various species of gaur, yet 



THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 283 

that it is well developed has often been proved by 
the winding of sportsmen sitting up on a platform 
over a kill. I have had such personal experience 
three times. There is no evidence, however, of a 
tiger hunting on the trail of its prey with nose to 
the scent like the wolf, or any of the dog family; 
and it is true, also, that very largely the tiger and 
others of the cat family lie in wait for their vic- 
tims, or stalk upon them at familiar haunts or 
feeding ground. Once as I hunted seladang in 
Siam, I glimpsed the stern of a tiger plunging 
into the jungle at my side; and found the well- 
defined squarish pugs of a big male that had lain 
in ambush perhaps for the very animal whose 
tracks I followed. I had passed within ten feet 
of the tiger, which evidently was not looking for 
two-legged game. 

On attack the tiger seizes by the throat with its 
powerful jaws and by the shoulders with its claw- 
armored fore paw. After a swift rush it kills 
with this grip by twisting its victim's neck until 
broken, and it is so strong that it can almost always 
bring down the gaur cow, though often beaten off 
by the bull whose neck is too massive and whose 
shoulders are too powerful to be wrenched. At 
such times the tiger resorts to subterfuge by crawl- 
ing head on, to invite a rush which it as repeatedly 
evades, awaiting its chance to emasculate the bull 



284 THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 

"by a swift attack from the rear. Such, when deal- 
ing with tigers is the favorite method also of wild 
dogs, which are swift and hunt both by sight and 
scent, never leaving the trail once it is entered 
upon. They never make a frontal attack, or lay 
themselves liable to the hoof or paw of what they 
are pursuing, but tirelessly follow, awaiting oppor- 
tunity to swiftly overwhelm by numbers, or, in the 
case of tiger, to leave the beast emasculated and to 
slow death. I heard of tigers killed by these dogs 
in a scuffle, but never came upon an authenticated 
case, and in the absence of such proof, must doubt 
it. So also do I question the reported instances 
of a boar successfully sustaining the attack of a 
tiger, though a fine old boar that was laid low 
after a gallant fight, by a pig-sticking company of 
which I was a member, had deep fang marks at the 
back of the head and on the chest, unmistakably 
made by a tiger. 

When the tiger fails to seize the throat, it pur- 
sues and hamstrings the bullock whose body it 
then drags to a retired spot, where after sunset it 
will feast— invariably, on the hind quarters first, 
the thighs being an especial delicacy and often 
eaten in the first night. Its first meal is usually 
an orgy, at the close of which the tiger seeks the 
nearest seclusion to doze off that " well filled feel- 
ing "; thereafter it eats day or night as inclined 



THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 285 

until the carcass is finished, drinking largely of 
water between and immediately following meals. 
Water and shade are the two needs of well-regu- 
lated tiger life. 

The " man-eater " is the jungle nightmare of 
India, and numerous are the theories to account 
for its abnormal appetite. Commonly it is said 
to be an old tiger which has found game too difficult 
to bring down, or a sickly tiger which has resorted 
to man-killing in its weakness as the easier method. 
The consensus of opinion among experienced hun- 
ters and observers is, however, that a man-eater is 
an ex-cattle killer which in conflict with herders, 
who are often quite brave in the defence of their 
cattle, has discovered how much less work it is to 
kill man than cattle— for the cattle killer is usually 
fat and lazy. Nothing has been found, so far as 
I have discovered, to suggest appetite for human 
flesh as the impelling motive, or that man-eaters 
reject all flesh not human, or that the cubs of a 
man-eating tigress inherit the man-killing propen- 
sity. Rather is it a case of contempt for man bred 
of familiarity, and more often the lust lays hold 
of the tigress, very likely because in foraging for 
her cubs (as she does until they begin to hunt for 
themselves at seven months) and in their defence, 
she has come more frequently in contact with man ; 
or it may be because the female is more numerous 



286 THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 

than the male, or because she is by nature the 
slyer and more vicious. Certainly she is a fiend 
incarnate when every second year she gives birth 
to cubs, usually two, which do not move about with 
her until six weeks old; and no doubt her dispo- 
sition is not improved by the necessity of conceal- 
ing the youngsters from the tiger who else would 
devour them. 

It is a curious and unexpected development that 
the cattle killer, turned man-eater, ceases to be 
indifferent to man's presence and becomes cow- 
ardly. Yet on occasion it is bold beyond all record 
of other animals. 

I came to a hamlet in northwestern Bengal, 
where a journeying ryot (farmer) at the very edge 
of a settlement, in broad daylight, was bumped off 
his scared bullock and pounced upon and carried 
off by a tigress. In the little settlement of Teen 
Pehan, to the west of the Ganges, I saw a mother 
whose five-year-old boy had been snatched up in 
the full noon of day while at play not fifty feet 
from where she bathed in a nearby stream. In 
Sumatra I saw the palms and the soles and the 
distorted face— all that remained of a fourteen- 
year-old girl who had gone forth in the early morn 
to collect herbs in the more or less open jungle 
almost within sight of her father's house on the 
river. One of my hunting party in lower Burma 



THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 287 

was the brother of a Karen, who had been struck 
down and carried away as he built a little temple 
in the jungle just beside his padi field. In the 
Malay Peninsula, just on the outskirts of Batu 
Gaja, a Tamil woman, carrying her babe on her 
hip, was mauled and her babe killed while making 
a short cut to her house through a small piece of 
open jungle. Such cases might be multiplied by 
other observers to show the occasional boldness of 
the man-eater; but as a rule it chooses a seques- 
tered spot for its attack, and is, because of its 
acquired skulking nature, the most difficult to hunt 
of all tigers. 

Other popular misconceptions give the tiger 
extraordinary leaping ability. It does not, as 
habitually painted, leap upon the back of its vic- 
tim to crunch the vertebrae of the neck. It may 
do so occasionally on small game. I have seen 
panther springing on the little barking deer, but 
the usual tiger method is a stealthy stalk followed 
by a swift rush and seizure of the victim's throat. 

It does not leap from twenty-five to one hundred 
feet, as we frequently read. Twelve feet is nearer 
the average of its jumps when chasing game, and 
there is no record of its jumping streams of over 
sixteen to eighteen feet in width. It is a bold 
swimmer, and a frequent wader. 



288 THE TRAIL OF THE TIGEE 

It does not give up pursuit of its quarry on fail- 
ure of the first attack. 

It does not deliver bone-crushing blows with its 
fore paws, like bruin, although it does give blows 
that lacerate the flesh. 

It does not roar like a lion. 

It does not kill by blood letting, but by dislo- 
cating the neck. 

It can climb a tree, but rarely does so. 

There is also much exaggeration concerning size 
and weight. A tiger that measures ten feet from 
the tip of its nose to the end of its tail is a big 
one, and above the average, which is about nine 
and a half feet. Of course there are exceptions, 
as in all animal kind, but the majority of eleven 
and twelve foot tiger stories are fiction. I was 
unable during six months' hunting to find definite 
account of one even eleven feet in length. I did 
hear of several ranging from ten feet to ten feet 
six inches, and one of ten feet eight inches. So 
also with the weight, which is commonly written 
down at from 400 to 500 pounds, whereas the aver- 
age will run from 300 to 375 pounds, the latter 
being a good one and the former figure more near 
the average. 

The manner of hunting tigers varies according 
to locality and conditions ; and in India alone sev- 
eral methods obtain: 



THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 289 

Driving the tiger out of the long grass of Bengal 
before a line of elephants to a previously selected 
open spot where the gunners, also on elephants, 
are stationed. 

Driving it out before a line of native beaters 
through the jungle to a given open place where the 
gunner is stationed up a tree near where the tiger 
is expected to break cover. 

Awaiting it on a platform (" mechan ") erected 
within thirty to fifty feet of a tied up live bullock 
or goat; or near the un-eaten carcass of the tiger's 
kill to which it will return. 

Walking it up before beaters; i. e., shooting it 
on foot. 

Natives also drive the tiger before a long line of 
beaters into widely stretched nets which are then 
closed and surrounded by fires and by men armed 
with spears and guns. In Java this method is 
elaborated into a " rampok," which includes free- 
ing a trapped tiger within a large circle of several 
rows deep made by men armed with spears. The 
" game " is gradually to narrow the circle until 
the charging and desperate beast is closed in by a 
wall of sharp steel points which finally despatch 
him. It is not a glorious game. Poison and 
spring guns and traps are also used by natives 
throughout the Orient to rid themselves of a man- 
eater. 

19 



290 THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 

In the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, lower Burma 
and southern Siam, the jungle is too dense and con- 
tinuous to permit of beating up tigers with a line 
of elephants. In fact, as compared with India, 
almost no tiger hunting is done in these countries, 
and that little consists of sitting up over a kill, or, 
in the dry season, over a water hole. The latter is 
a favorite method of Chinamen who hunt tigers 
for the skin and for the whiskers which, like the 
horn of the rhino, are largely valued on account 
of certain occult influences they are supposed to 
exert in compounding medical charms. But in 
none of this Far Eastern section are the natives 
hunters by inclination, and not enough hunting is 
done by the handful of resident whites to replace 
ignorance with skill. Besides, the average native 
is not in sympathy with hunting ; he has no stomach 
for the game; so that pursuit of the tiger in this 
part of the world is done under extremely difficult 
conditions, and with no great measure of success. 
In sections of Corea, and on parts of the Chinese 
coast, however, Chinamen, armed with great, three- 
tined pitchfork-like spears, hunt out the cave- 
dwelling tiger and become not only expert but 
brave and dependable. And this tiger is fully as 
formidable as the one of India, requiring of the 
sportsman both nerve and courage. 

Hunting from the back of an elephant has no ele- 



THE TRAIL OP THE TIGER 291 

ment whatever of danger for anyone except the 
mahout (driver) when the tiger charges the ele- 
phant's head; at such times the mahout's seat 
astride the elephant's neck just behind the great 
ears becomes untenable if the attacking beast is 
not quickly killed by the guns above in the howdah. 
It is the method pursued by the native rajahs of 
India, high officials, and visitors who want to kill 
a tiger regardless of cost— and can afford the price. 
And it is the most luxurious, expensive and easiest 
way of gratifying the tiger-killing impulse. On 
such a hunt from thirty to one hundred or even, 
more elephants may be employed, and as ele- 
phants are worth each from $400 to $2,000, and 
cost about $1.00 a day for keep alone, an idea may 
be formed of the hire of such an expedition— not 
to mention its intrinsic value. Then there are the 
mahouts and beaters and camp makers and water 
carriers and personal servants, to number from 
seventy-five to three hundred according to the size 
and distinction of the expedition. 

The howdah in which the hunter rides and from 
which he shoots, is a wood and cane affair resting 
on two round long pads placed lengthwise either 
side of the elephant's backbone, and firmly lashed 
in place by ropes passing under the elephant's 
neck, belly and tail. The hunters draw lots for 
position and when they have been stationed— 



292 THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 

sometimes as much as one hundred yards apart, 
according to the country— other elephants bearing 
only a pad and their mahouts, beat the jungle 
towards the sportsmen in the howdahs. The chief 
excitement in this kind of hunting centres around 
the question of who will get the tiger, for in a 
country possible to such extended drives, there is 
no certainty as to the precise point the beast will 
break cover, and getting a shot is therefore a mat- 
ter of individual luck. Sometimes, when the tiger 
does not break cover, the howdah-bearing elephants 
close in upon the piece of jungle in which the 
quarry lies concealed, and then there is more 
" doing " and some fun. But for the most part, 
standing on the back of an elephant inside a how- 
dah behind an armory of guns, is not particularly 
stirring and does not appeal to the sportsman who 
has ever experienced the thrill of stalking. 

Shooting rhinoceros from a howdah, however, 
if not more dangerous, at least averages higher in 
diversion, because in close cover elephants hold a 
rhino always in great respect and frequently in 
much fear on account of its obstinate advance and 
well understood tendency to gore legs and stomachs 
that obstruct its path. Therefore a rhino in long 
grass at close quarters means a good bit of scur- 
rying around and at times it means a run-away by 
an elephant that has become panic-stricken at the 




§ ■■-» 






THE TEAIL OF THE TIGER 293 

sharp whiffing, sniffing, and the swaying grass that 
mark the charging rhino. If trees happen to be 
plentiful in the vicinity such a run-away is really 
dangerous to the occupants of the howdah. Once 
I had such an experience and I hope never to have 
another so uncomfortable. Luckily there were no 
trees, but several shallow, narrow gullies into 
which the elephant scrambled with great haste ; the 
howdah meanwhile rocking like a cockle shell in 
a sea way. I was as a pea within a vigorously 
shaken rattle. That the howdah stayed on the 
elephant's back is recommendation enough of the 
strength of the ropes and the skill of the lashing. 
Walking up a tiger with beaters can not be done 
in a long grass country and should be attempted 
anywhere only by those of experience ; aside from 
the danger, there are a hundred chances of failure 
by doing the wrong thing at the right time. A 
tiger shows extraordinary intelligence in discern- 
ing the silent, waiting sportsman up a tree in the 
foreground, from the harmless, though noisy tom- 
toming beaters at his rear, and will often break 
back through the line, unless continuous skill and 
care are exercised. So a beat should never begin 
too near the tiger once he has been located, as he 
may go unseen straight out of the country at once. 
Some tigers show immediately; others not until 
the last moment; and, as with other animals, no 



294 THE TEAIL OF THE TIGER 

two tigers act the same. Incidentally, no tiger 
shows so quickly as the panther. To know the 
ground thoroughly, therefore, is an absolute essen- 
tial to successful beating; not only to know the 
cover to be driven, but the possible outlets to the 
covers nearby. My failure to get a tiger in half a 
dozen such tries is explained by just that lack of 
knowledge which I never could find in the natives 
upon whom I had to depend, and never could stop 
long enough in one locality to acquire myself. 
Where natives are as familiar with the tiger as 
they are in India, and know the ground, the 
chances are immeasurably enhanced, and success 
should and will come to the experienced hunter 
who can await such conditions. If your tiger 
breaks cover directly in front of you, hold your 
fire ; if possible let him get abreast of your position, 
or past it, before you press the trigger. Other- 
wise he is apt to break back among your beaters, 
and may kill one of them; may destroy their cour- 
age in themselves and their confidence in you, 
which is very serious. 

Sitting up over a kill is the most frequent habit 
of Malaya, and the most infrequent of success, as 
compared with India, because of inexpertness in 
building the " mechan," and in tying up the bul- 
lock or goat, which should be placed in a quiet place, 
several hundred yards from any cover where it 



THE TEAIL OF THE TIGER 295 

will be possible for the tiger to lie up during the 
day, after he has taken the bait. This will enable 
you, when the kill has been made, to build your 
platform without fear of disturbing the tiger, as 
is often the case and the cause of his failure to 
return. Of course it must be located down wind 
from the bait, and back from the tiger's probable 
line of approach when such is possible of discern- 
ment. The mechan may be what size you will, but 
should be no larger than necessary— say 6x3, or 
even ljx4, and must be made of tough material 
that will not creak, with a screen of leaves that will 
not dry up quickly to crackle at an inauspicious 
instant. It ought to be about fifteen feet above 
ground, or twenty, if you can equally as well build 
one so high, to lessen the chance of being scented. 
Mechans vary from such simple workmanlike plat- 
forms to ones bearing nearly all the comforts of 
home. - An Anglo-Indian whom I knew as an inde- 
fatigable devotee of this kind of shooting, used to 
build his mechan with great care and furnish it 
with mattress, pillows, rug, water bottle and read- 
ing matter. Whether the platform be simple or 
elaborate, however, take no one into it with you; 
twice I lost good opportunities of scoring through 
my servant's clearing his throat. The tiger does 
not usually look up, unless his attention is at- 
tracted by a noise, but the slightest movement 



296 THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 

catches his exquisitely sensitive ear, and when they 
have been hunted tigers become so wary as to 
be well-nigh impossible of circumvention. Get to 
your platform by four in the afternoon, for be- 
tween that hour and half after eight is the most 
likely time of his coming, though, as a matter of 
fact, he may and does appear at any hour of the 
night. All nicely man-made rules and regulations 
are violated by this quarry. 

To walk up a tiger is the most dangerous form 
of sport, but to the man with the heart for it— far 
and away the most enjoyable. Like other pur- 
suits of the venturesome, this one should not be 
attempted by the inexperienced or by those that 
can not keep cool under nerve-trying conditions; 
and in common with all hazardous games, expe- 
rience robs this one of some of its f ormidability. 
Experience should spell caution as well as skill, 
and a man having both will know enough never 
on foot to track a tiger into long grass, or to 
approach in very close cover. A tiger seeks to 
conceal himself, and on discovery is moved, in my 
judgment, by the spirit of self-defence against 
what he believes to be an attack, rather than by 
the single desire to kill; though whatever the im- 
pelling spirit may be, the hunter's position is none 
the less eased, for the tiger in such jungle can 
usually move quicker than a man can handle his 



THE TKAIL OF THE TIGEE 297 

gun. For that reason never approach cover that 
can hide a tiger until it has been explored, and 
make it a rule to believe every piece of this kind 
of cover does hold a tiger until you have proved 
that it does not. Tiger hunting in any form is 
dangerous business, and following a wounded one 
should depend entirely on the nature of the jungle 
into which the beast has retreated. If the cover 
is dense— keep away until you are re-inforced and 
even then don't venture to drive him out unless 
you have a body of spearmen that will stand firm ; 
unlike the valiant boar, a tiger will not, as a rule, 
charge a party that is bunched and holding its 
ground. Nor under ordinary circumstances is an 
unwounded tiger apt to charge unless you stand 
in his only avenue of escape. Tiger shooting, in 
a word, is so variable and always so dangerous that 
without a companion of suitable temperament and 
experience the average hunter should not engage 
in walking up the quarry ; and not then unless he 
carries a level head. To the man so constructed 
that he can not keep cool I say with all emphasis— 
don't go tiger hunting. An excellent aid to keep- 
ing cool is a double barrel rifle ; and a maxim worth 
remembering is never to fire your last cartridge at 
a retreating tiger, because if you wound him he is 
likely to change his mind about running away— 
and a tiger coming your way, uttering his short, 



298 THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 

coughing roars, is about as unnerving and dan- 
gerous an experience as a hunter can have. 

Not every tiger hunt is rewarded with a tiger. 
Except for my friend, Dr. Smith— and English 
army officers of India who are out at every report 
—I know none that has done more actual hunting 
for tiger within a given period than I— and I have 
yet to secure my first trophy, though I wounded 
three, in the course of six months' uninterrupted 
industry in Sumatra, Malay Peninsula, Siam, 
lower Burma and India, during which time I sat 
up over goats and bullocks; watched over a kill 
from a mechan; waited up a tree for a tiger to 
break cover in front of beaters, and walked him up. 
At first it was partly inexperience on my part, 
and then native ignorance and lack of coopera- 
tion; lastly it was hollow-pointed bullets, and 
always it was lack of time; for getting a tiger is 
after all a question of time and opportunity, other 
things being equal. You may go out two dozen 
times, as I did, without carrying home a scalp, or 
you may score the first time, as has been done from 
a howdah. 

My first tiger hunt developed from a deer hunt 
on the coast of the Malay Peninsula, which I 
joined to please my Mohammedan host, Aboo Din, 
who had just brought me back from a successful 
boar shoot he had organized for me with great 



THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 299 

reluctance— for the disciple of Mohammed holds 
no intercourse with pigs. Now although the Malay 
is not a hunter, some of them are quite devoted to 
running deer with dogs, and a few of the better 
class keep packs for the purpose, with a huntsman, 
who is a kind of witch doctor called " pawang," 
with many fields of activity. I found pawangs 
that looked after crops, pawangs that spirited 
away sickness, and pawangs that insured success- 
ful deer hunting. As a rule only the sultans or 
rajahs afford pawangs; but Din, though neither 
sultan nor rajah, was a native of influence and 
wealth, and there was not much doing in the Malay 
Peninsula that he was not into, from deer chasing 
up to horse racing. He was very proud of his pack 
which was in fact famous in the neighborhood. 

When we reached the cover where the dogs were 
to be turned in for deer, we halted, while the pa- 
wang delivered himself of an incantation to assure 
success, and when a deer was killed the carcass 
remained untouched until the pawang again fell 
into fanatical frenzy as the hunters gathered 
around. Aboo explained the final ceremony as 
necessary to deliver the spirit of the deer into 
Mohammed's safe keeping; otherwise it would for- 
ever haunt and afflict the man who had killed it. 
Several days we successfully snap-shot deer, as 
they raced across more or less open stretches from 



300 THE TEAIL OF THE TIGER 

one patch of jungle to another, when one noon the 
dogs suddenly broke into a loudly distressful 
chorus which Aboo declared could only mean that 
they had run into a tiger. As we turned cautious 
steps towards the howling and yapping it sub- 
sided and soon we came to three badly mauled and 
whining members of the scattered pack which we 
could hear beating hasty retreat in many direc- 
tions. "We moved carefully, although the jungle 
was fairly open and the dogs' back tracks easily 
followed in the soft soil. The ground was well cut 
up at the scene of the brief and apparently one- 
sided conflict; blood showed that something had 
been doing, while the plainly printed oval pugs 
of a tigress indicated who had been doing it. We 
followed these pugs with the utmost deliberation 
until they led out of that piece of jungle to skirt 
another and finally enter the lower end of a ravine, 
by which time it was dark. Next morning at day- 
light, we picked up the trail again at the point 
where it led into cover of unusual density in the 
shallow ravine. I suggested that Aboo put the 
dogs and men in here while we took position at the 
upper end of the draw just below where it ended 
in higher ground. A good bit of urging was nec- 
essary to get the dogs into the cover and much 
encouragement to keep them moving, but the Ma- 
lays, armed only with the parang (jungle knife), 



THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 301 

yelled and shouted and threshed the jungle with 
stout bamboo poles sharpened at one end into 
a short tough point, as though hugely enjoying 
themselves. It was an hour before the beaters 
approached to within about one hundred yards of 
us, and as Aboo watched the lower bank of the 
gully and I the upper, twice we thought we saw 
the yellowish head poking its way through the 
jungle above us. We felt sure it would break 
cover on the upper bank at the sky line. Sud- 
denly as we watched intently, the sun burst forth 
brilliantly over the hill, shining full in our eyes, 
and at that miserable moment out came the tigress 
from the jungle straight into the bewildering 
glare. 'Twas an impossible shot, but my first op- 
portunity at such game, which must have been my 
excuse for firing. I missed the mark by feet I sup- 
pose; the tigress at all events vanished instanter 
over the hill, and though several hours we tracked 
her, finally we lost all trail and had to give it up 
greatly disappointed. 

A tiger that has once hesitated on its charge is 
not likely to charge home. Once I had an expe- 
rience to corroborate this. Near a native settle- 
ment on the west bank of the Ganges I had been for 
several days without success walking up a tiger in 
the hills. Then followed other days of even no sign, 
and finally a day when one broke cover in front 



302 THE TRAIL OP THE TIGER 

of beaters, about seventy-five yards from where 
I sat in position up a tree. He was a regal sight 
as he came out silently, slowly— stopping, with half 
his body still uncovered, while, with raised paw, 
like a cat, he cautiously surveyed the field. The 
picture was so enjoyable, for the moment, 1 did not 
think of shooting, or, in my inexperience, realize 
that at any instant he might disappear. And so it 
was— for suddenly, with a spring and a turn to one 
side he was gone into the jungle again ; but I had 
awakened from my trance with his first move and 
as he vanished put in a shot which scored because 
I saw him switch around and bite his stern as the 
cover closed upon him. The piece of jungle into 
which he had retreated was dense at the edges, but 
opened up some just beyond, and we made our way 
on the tracks slowly and carefully, one of the 
beaters having a little mongrel fox terrier type of 
dog that went forward on the trail with unex- 
pected courage. We were a long time before get- 
ting to a very dense piece where we hesitated, 
while part of the men and the dog went off to one 
side with a view to making a survey of the close 
cover from another point. As they worked off I 
moved forward a little in an endeavor to find a 
better position, from which to look ahead. I had 
got but a short distance and where I could not see 
six feet ahead, when I was halted by a sudden 





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THE TRAIL OP THE TIGER 303 

growling and a heart-stopping, short, coughing 
roar. It was the first time I had heard it— and 
I freely confess— it well-nigh froze my blood. I 
knew it was a tiger ; I could plainly hear it coming ; 
and as the jerky roar grew nearer and nearer, I 
stood there having sensations— I do assure you. 
But I stood, for I realized how useless would be 
an attempt to escape by running; I thought I 
would have a better chance for my life if I faced 
the music. 

With my rifle raised and at full cock I stood 
waiting, waiting, and just at the instant I expected 
the terrifying thing to burst upon me from out the 
jungle that nerve-racking roar ceased, and was fol- 
lowed by stillness quite as dreadful, for I did not 
know what it might not portend. I pictured the 
tiger stalking noiselessly around me, looking for 
the best place from which to make his final rush. 
The day wasn't so hot, but the perspiration rolled 
from me pretty freely just about that time. Then 
at last came the relief of a noise which seemed 
going from me. It sounded as though the tiger 
was retreating. And that is precisely what he was 
doing. He went out on the unguarded side of the 
cover— out of my life forever, so far as I know, 
but not without having made a deep impression 
upon me ; to this day I can hear that tiger coming. 
Sitting up " on a platform for tiger with a 



u 



304 THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 

tied-up bullock nearby, as bait, does not commend 
itself to me as sport ; it is too much like bear bait- 
ing, in which no sportsman should engage. Such 
methods are only excusable when an animal's pred- 
atory nature has put it in the vermin class, to be 
exterminated one way or another. And sitting 
up does not assure tiger by any means, even 
though it be over the beast's own kill. My at- 
tempts were all failures. Three times I was 
winded, the direction of the breeze changing at sun- 
down, and my platform being only eight feet above 
ground; another time I fired in the dim uncer- 
tain light of a cloud-covered moon, and missed; 
twice my servant's cough warned the tiger. On 
another occasion the tiger came directly under my 
platform from the rear. I could hear it sniffing 
and the firm tread on the rustling leaves, which 
once heard is always remembered. For minutes it 
stood silent and I dared not move to try for a look 
lest it take alarm. I even feared it might hear my 
heart thumping above its head. Then, a twig 
cracked in the stillness ; and again and for eternity, 
it seemed— dead silence. So long I sat cramped 
that one foot went to sleep, and my discomfort was 
extreme. At last daylight— but no tiger. It had 
vanished, perhaps at the cracking of the twig, as 
suddenly as it had come. 
None the less sitting up has compensations, even 



THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 305 

though a tiger be not one of them. Really I found 
the experience full of interest. Sunset in such 
country is the most delightful hour of the tropical 
twenty-four, for it is in the cool of evening that 
refreshment comes after the super-heated day, and 
you hear jungle sounds, and see jungle life of 
which you never before knew. After a time the 
moon looks forth, and by and by, as its soft light 
spreads, the trees stand forth, darkly, sharply sil- 
houetted against the sky, and all the jungle takes 
on new and strangely picturesque beauty. One 
evening, as I sat over the kill of a tiger — I had 
the luck to watch the antics of two jackals stealing 
a meal. Well they knew whose kill they nosed, 
and every movement suggested terror at the risk. 
One would circle the opening, head stuck out and 
every nerve obviously on edge while the other 
snatched a morsel from the dead bullock ; then the 
other guarded while the erstwhile sentinel grabbed 
a mouthful and swallowed it unchewed— neither 
ever resting an instant. So they continued for 
many minutes while they secured a very respect- 
able meal, and grew a bit careless for once one 
paused a second at the carcass to take more than 
a passing grab, when the other, with tail between 
legs, back arched and head extended down and out 
to the full length of its neck, rushed it with such 

a grin on its face as made me wish to kill it then 
20 



306 THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 

and there. Suddenly, with eyes searching the 
jungle on one side, they fell to whimpering and 
twittering and dancing on their feet as though in 
mortal terror of an impending calamity— then like 
a flash they were gone. I confidently expected to 
see a tiger appear, but none came, though I watched 
patiently and intently throughout the long night. 

My most serious experience with a tiger hap- 
pened in Sumatra. Uda Prang and I were re- 
turning from a successful rhinoceros hunt, and 
came one night to a settlement of half a dozen 
houses, where the growing of the sago plant and 
the cutting of rattan to sell Chinese traders, made 
up the industrial life of the inhabitants. We found 
the little settlement in a state of great agitation 
and mourning, for only the night before a young 
girl had been killed by a tiger or panther, they knew 
not which, as she gathered herbs not a quarter of 
a mile away from her home. It was evening when 
we arrived, but on the morning following, early, 
we were taken out to where the tragedy had oc- 
curred, and a bloody bit of dress and the palms of 
the child's hands and soles of her feet indicated 
that the beast had made its ghastly feast on the 
spot. The pug marks seemed to me rather small 
for a tiger, but Uda said it was a tiger and not a 
panther. 

Back from the river and behind the open fields 



THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 307 

where the jungle had been reclaimed for sago, were 
two sugar-loaf -shaped hills of independent, uneven 
tops, but joined at the base by a ridge-like back- 
bone, which was fairly free of jungle though other- 
wise the hills were rather closely covered. For two 
days we hunted the tiger's tracks, feeling fairly 
confident of eventual success as this happened to 
be one of a few cultivated patches widely separated 
on this stretch of the river, and as crops attract 
deer and pigs, so pigs and deer attract tigers. 
And at last we did find the trail of this tiger where 
it led into the larger of the two hills. That night, 
by a happy bit of luck, two canoes loaded with 
rattan for the Chinamen down river, rested at the 
settlement, and we persuaded the four Malay boat- 
men to stop over and help us. So next day at day- 
light we set out sixteen strong, carrying bamboo 
sticks for jungle beating, three drums for noise 
and spears for defense ; it was an absurdly inade- 
quate line, but it represented the population of a 
one-hundred-mile radius. We started the men in 
on the larger hill, where we had found the tracks, 
to beat towards me on the smaller hill where I took 
position commanding the comparatively uncov- 
ered connecting ridge. And we posted two men 
in the fields to note if the tiger left the isolated 
hills. What with their jungle threshing and 
shouting and vigorous, unceasing drum, drum- 



308 THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 

ming, the beaters altogether made quite a noise 
and as after an hour or more it neared me I 
thought I caught a glimpse of the tiger skulking 
along down low on the side of the backbone, 
where the growth was thick— making towards my 
hill. It could in this way pass my position unseen, 
and fearful that it might escape from the un- 
guarded side of the small hill, I made my way to 
Uda Prang who forthwith ordered the men over 
to the far side of the smaller hill which the tiger 
had entered and which I had just left— to beat back 
and thus turn and drive it again across the ridge 
and on to the larger hill from which it had origi- 
nally started. 

As the beaters began their yelling and smashing, 
Jin Abu and I started to climb to an abrupt shelf- 
like bench on the larger hill, which overlooked the 
backbone. The hill was fairly steep and the close 
cover made moving laborious with frequent check- 
ing. Several times we were distressed with im- 
patience at being delayed by clinging thorn-cov- 
ered growths. A bit winded we neared the site we 
had chosen from which to shoot the tiger as it 
came back over the ridge. Thoughts of what I 
would do with the pelt ran in my head— and then 
we were startled by a growl followed by a mut- 
tered edition of the coughing roar I knew well by 



THE TRAIL OP THE TIGER 309 

this time, and there, not more. than six or eight 
feet away, and above us, was the tiger we thought 
was on the other hill. He had crossed back and was 
now watching us, body crouched, chin close to its 
fore paws, eyes glaring menacingly. It was the 
surprise of my hunting career, and withal a most 
disturbing situation, for my rifle (50-calibre) hung 
from my left shoulder. I felt that a spring was 
imminent, and it seemed that almost with thought 
of it, the spring came, but not before I had swung 
my rifle into position, and fired, full into the beast's 
face, dropping flat instantly with the same intui- 
tiveness which closes the eyelid against flying dan- 
ger. Uda Prang was not so quick in dropping 
and, as the tiger went over our heads it reached 
him, on the shoulders in passing, tearing the flesh 
severely with its claws. It kept on down the steep 
hill breaking cover, and plunging into the jungle, 
across the fields, where for three days we tracked 
it. At first we found blood but it did not last 
long, indicating a superficial head wound, and after 
a time the pug prints were entirely lost on firm soil. 

So the little girl was not avenged after all, but 
I received a practical lesson in the untrustworthi- 
ness of hollow-pointed bullets on dangerous game. 

Thus the tiger's trail, and the tiger. To none 
are accredited such human tragedies; to none so 



310 THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 

much of ferocity and cunning and cruelty and 
power. But it is royal game ! the kind to fix upon 
you that fascination which lies in the pursuit of 
quarry, having a minimum of the man-fear with 
which brute nature is possessed. 



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